Of Those Chosen: The Twins
by hjdevnull
Summary: COMPLETED. A pair of identical twin Slayers awakened by the spell cast in Chosen (07x22) run into the Scoobies in Cleveland a year later... [spoilers: BtVS & AtS, in entirety]
1. Pulling the Plug

**Title**: Of Those Chosen: The Twins  
**Rating**: R (language, violence)  
**Pairings/Characters**: Ensemble, plus some OCs. Picks up after episode 07x22 - _Chosen_.  
**Length**: 55,000 words over 19 chapters.  
**Summary**: One year after the events of _Chosen_, the remenants of those from Sunnydale have settled in Cleveland, Ohio -- but things have not gone as they hoped. No new Slayers have been found, until a pair of identical-twin Slayers enter their lives. This event acts as catalyst for a new enemy to engage the Scoobies.  
**Warnings**: Has death, betrayal, and loss of hope. Also, it's long. )  
**Author's Notes**: Pretty much covered above. Obviously, I don't own any Mutant Enemy characters and make no money off them (is that even truly necessary?). Katharine Beckford, Audrey Beckford, Helen St. Claire, Kimbery Mullin, Janet Unger, Cole, and Donner are all my creation -- no use granted without permission.  
**Archiving**: Please ask.

* * *

**Chapter One**  
_**Pulling the Plug**_

May of 2003 - Shaker Heights, Ohio:

Katharine Beckford looked down at her twin sister, Audrey. The similarities between them were great, even for identical twins. Sometimes, before, their father would joke that Hailey Mills wasn't so similar even when she played both twins in The Parent Trap. That was before, though.

Now, as Katharine looked down on Audrey, she almost felt they were the same person. It felt like it was her down there on the hospital bed, her head shaved where the doctors performed emergency brain surgery, tubes up her nose, face pale with the remains of bruises. Six months ago, the front-right tire of Audrey's car blew out while she drove on the highway. Her car flipped, hit a concrete telephone pole, and Audrey barely survived.

Until now.

The doctors said the longer Audrey remained in a coma, the less her chance of waking up was. And, really -- did they want her to wake up? Katharine loved her sister, missed her so much it hurt, but the EEG showed only minor electrical activity in her brain and doctors said that, at best, she would barely be coherent if she woke up. Right now, all that kept Audrey alive were the machines she was hooked up to. After six months of a coma, her parents had finally come to the decision to pull the plug.

Katharine gently lowered herself down and kissed Audrey lightly on the forehead. "I love you, Audrey," she said.

Katharine stepped back to let her parents approach the bed. The room was fairly crowded, with aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins all there to say goodbye to her sister. She moved to the back of the room, her back against the wall just beside the bathroom door.

"I can't believe they're making an occasion out of this," Katharine thought. "They're pulling the plug, letting you die, and they call a get-together? Morbid."

Her mother and father stood together beside Audrey's bed. "We are glad you could all make it here today," her father said, "although the circumstances are sad indeed." Katharine shook her head and tuned her father's words out. He was given to speeches -- he liked to talk and hear himself talk, but Katharine didn't particularly share that view.

She thought about the day she learned of Audrey's wreck: they were on the school's soccer team together, but Audrey skipped practice that day to go to the library to study for a test she had the next day. Audrey always had trouble with history, memorizing dates and names; she did much better with math and sciences, where a concept lead to the correct answer. Katharine was the opposite: she preferred English and history to the hard sciences.

No one bothered to call her cell phone to tell her anything. She came home that night to an empty house, which -- aside from the absence of her sister -- was not altogether unusual. Her father was a surgeon, her mother a lawyer, and both often worked late hours. She called Audrey's cell phone around eleven-thirty, but it was off. No big deal, right? She was in the library. Made sense to turn it off.

When she woke up for school the next morning and still the house was empty, Katharine started to worry. She called her parents' cell phones: off, due to hospital regulations. She called friends and parents' friends; no one knew what was going on--

A sudden jolt brought her back to the present. She felt like someone punched her in the stomach, almost, something was spreading from a warm center in her body and everything in her muscles and mind felt weird. Her father was still talking even as he bent down to pull the plug on Audrey's life support machine, and the monitors went haywire all around Audrey and suddenly Katharine felt fine, refreshed, strong...

Her father pulled the plug out.

The monitor beeped softly, steadily. No faltering, no hesitation.

Steady.

:#:

May of 2003 - just outside Sunnydale, California:

Buffy, Dawn, Giles, Faith, and Xander all stood beside the crater Sunnydale left. They stared down at the ground where they lived, fought, bled, and died (multiple times, in Buffy's case). And they all wondered one question:

"Now what?"

-:-


	2. May Is Not A Good Month

Author's Note: Kennedy's last name is taken from the actress who played her, Iyari Limon. All other character names, I just made them up. And "Junior Miss Slayers" is taken from Television Without Pity recaps of the last season of Buffy.

* * *

**Chapter Two**  
_**May Is Not a Good Month**_

Willow sat in a chair across the desk from the IT director. She wore a nice business suit she bought a week before with help from Buffy, who vetoed the suit Willow originally picked out ("No, Will, you want 'respectable,' not 'Liberace'.") and instead selected a charcoal, knee-length skirt and jacket ensemble which brought out her eyes and looked great with her red hair. She tried to remain calm and confident; although she possessed the skills for the programming job (she might even be over-qualified for the job skills-wise), she still had no college diploma and no real job experience.

The IT director, a balding man in his mid-thirties named Frank Joseph, looked up from Willow's resume. "Well, Miss Rosenberg, you certainly have an impressive skills set, and your references are -- uh, diverse," he said. "But we prefer to hire professionals who are formally trained in data security and database structure, rather than self-educated individuals."

"Well, I am formally educated, sir," Willow said. "I was in college for three years and I was only twenty credit hours from my degree. I could've graduated much sooner, but I was double-majoring."

"I see. What caused you to leave college?" Joseph asked after a slight pause.

"I took a year off to travel to England," Willow said. Not entirely how it happened, but she did take a year off and she did travel to England. "I planned to return to school, but that's impossible now."

"Really? And why is that?"

Willow could tell Joseph expected some sort of typical sob story about failing finances or a family member in crisis. She tried to hide a smirk. "UC Sunnydale doesn't exist anymore. The entire city collapsed into a sinkhole."

Joseph's eyes bulged for a second, and Willow smiled. She relaxed -- somehow, she knew she was going to get the job.

:#:

Faith sauntered into the club around three in the afternoon. "I heard you were looking for a bartender," she said to the three guys cleaning up inside.

Twenty minutes later, she walked out with a four-nights-a-week bartending job.

:#:

_...Things went well for the Scoobies in the nine months after Sunnydale was destroyed. From the edge of the crater, Andrew drove the bus to the closest town, where they stayed in a hotel for several days while they tried to decide where to go. Only seven of the Potentials brought to Sunnydale survived the battle with the First Evil._

_Eventually, they decided to travel to Cleveland because, as Xander Harris said, "Not only is there a Hellmouth there, but according to prominent eighties musician Huey Lewis, so is the Heart of Rock and Roll, so we can get the best of both worlds."_

_Rupert Giles, the last of the Watcher's Council, discovered he was now the de facto owner of all the assets of the Council. Buffy Summers received insurance money for her house, destroyed along with the rest of Sunnydale; not nearly the full value, but still a sum large enough to support her comfortably for a year or two._

_Kennedy Limon's father, Philipe Limon, bought her a house and assisted Rupert Giles in organizing the Watcher's Council's assets into a not-for-profit organization with a public face of a feminist scholarship and research fund. Willow Rosenberg, Kennedy Limon's girlfriend, moved in with her, along with Alexander Harris, Andrew Wells, and Slayers-in-Training Janet Unger and Kimberly Mullin. Buffy Summers bought a house whose back yard bordered Kennedy Limon's house's back yard, and her sister Dawn Summers moved in with her, along with Slayers-in-Training Violet Brodengard, Rona Davies, Kim Chao-Ahn, and Helen St. Claire. Rupert Giles bought a house a block away from the Summers and the Limon houses, which he shared with Robin Wood and Faith Covington._

_Robin Wood's wounds from the battle with The First Evil healed fully, and he took a position teaching Advanced Placement European History at a local high school. Kennedy Limon enrolled at Case Western Reserve University. Willow Rosenberg worked net security and data processing for a credit union. Buffy Summers enrolled at a community college to get her grades back in shape for college, and took a part-time job as a lunchtime receptionist for a law firm. Xander Harris took a job as a painter, where the contractor he worked for quickly recognized his intelligence and dependability and promoted him to project manager. Dawn Summers enrolled in the high school where Robin Wood taught._

_The six Potentials -- now Slayers-in-Training, as they had the powers of Buffy Summers, Faith Covington, and Kennedy Limon but not the experience and training -- worked with Rupert Giles to organize the new joint Watchers' and Slayers' Council. They agreed to be home-schooled for that year, where they would get caught up to speed academically as well as in their education as Slayers, and decisions as to public schooling would be made that spring..._

:#:

In March, Xander, Willow, and Dawn presented Buffy with a plane ticket to Europe.

"Guys, you didn't have to do this," Buffy said. She smiled and hugged each of them. "Thank you."

"Well, it's going to be May soon," Xander said, "and we want you away from all Hellmouths when that happens."

Buffy's smile faded. "What do you mean? What -- are you hiding something from me?"

"We're not hiding anything, Buffy, really," Willow said. Buffy glared. "We're not!"

"No need to hide anything, it's pretty obvious May is not your month," Dawn said.

Buffy glared at each of them in turn. She raised her eyebrows and demanded an explanation.

"Okay, Buffy, I've known you through seven Mays so far," Xander said. "And honestly, your track record isn't so hot."

Buffy shook her head. "Okay, you three have lost me. What are you talking about?"

Xander and Willow exchanged a glance. Dawn sighed.

Xander counted on his fingers as he said, "Okay, let's see, shall we? In Mays, so far, you've died, killed your vampiric lover to stop the world from being sucked into Hell, blew up your entire high school, almost gotten all of us killed by the first Slayer, died _again_, almost got killed by a magic lesbian--"

"Hey!" Willow said.

"--and deposited your adopted hometown into a big hole in the ground," Xander finished. "May is a bad Buffy month. We say you go on vacation."

Buffy blinked and took the ticket. "You guys have to admit, though, the blowing up the school thing was kinda cool."

:#:

May came again, as it does when no one destroys the world. The Cleveland Hellmouth remained quiet, vampire attacks and raisings were kept to a minimum. Buffy's departure to Europe became something of a joke amongst the Scoobies -- that if she left, nothing bad would happen.

The biggest problem remained finding the Slayers awakened by Willow's spell. No one knew how it would affect Potentials, for no one truly understood the previous process of Potentials and Callings. As much as Willow and Giles tried to adjust their magic, any locator spell they cast to find any Slayer -- even Buffy or Faith -- simply returned "world" as the answer.

:#:

Katharine entered her parents' house without any effort to be quiet, even though it had been about three days since the last time she was there. Her parents certainly didn't care that she was gone; in fact, they probably preferred it.

The past year had changed Katharine greatly. Audrey survived without the life support, and woke up only two months after they pulled the plug, but she awoke a very changed girl. She had partial amnesia from the damage to her brain, and even a year later none of her lost memories had returned. Dreams of other places and strange monsters had seeped into her memories of her life before the accident, and she had trouble distinguishing memories that never happened from those that did. Her speech was different and often changed mid-sentence, and she suffered sporadic aphasia -- a condition where she would occasionally lose the ability to understand spoken or written language, sometimes for as short as a word and sometimes as long as a day.

The main problem in Katharine's life stemmed from Audrey's memories -- specifically, the memories of Katharine she still possessed, and the memories of their parents she lost. In July, when Audrey first woke, she recognized Katharine immediately but knew her parents not at all.  
Her parents never forgave Katharine for being remembered where they were forgotten.

Katharine loved her sister, and was so happy that she was alive and awake, but home life became unbearable. Her parents ignored her, refusing to buy her new clothes or make food for her or any normal parental function. Her grades slipped, they didn't care. She stayed out late, they didn't care. She dyed her hair purple and quit the soccer team, and they still didn't care. Eventually, Katharine quit trying to make them care.

"Katharine?" Audrey called from her room. She came out into the hallway and saw her sister. "Katharine!" she said, delighted, and ran across the hallway to throw herself into her sister's arms. Katharine was knocked back a step, but managed to keep her balance. "I missed!" Audrey said.

Katharine grinned. Audrey's aphasia usually became a bit more pronounced when she was excited -- sometimes, she simply used the wrong word, sometimes she omitted words accidentally. "I missed you, too," Katharine said.

Audrey beamed and hugged her sister again. "Stay some," she said. "No one here is..." She held her mouth open for a moment, confused.

"Fun?" Katharine offered.

"Yes, fun!" Audrey said. "No one here is fun like you. Stay?"

"Well, I'm tired," Katharine said. "Any chance you could be up for a nap?"

Audrey nodded. "I have a new bed, it's big, and no bars on it!" she said. She grabbed Katharine's hand and yanked her down the hall toward her bedroom. Katharine staggered -- her sister was strong.

When Audrey first came home from the hospital, her nightmares were vivid and intense. She often rolled around in bed, and her parents decided to put up a barricade around the bed so she wouldn't accidentally roll off. Gradually, Audrey learned how to put the nightmares under control.

Katharine smiled when she got to Audrey's room. She had a brand-new king-sized bed, complete with a huge, fluffy comforter and at least six pillows. "A bed fit for a princess," Katharine said. She managed to keep her bitterness out of her voice.

Audrey tossed Katharine onto the bed. They both laughed, and Audrey jumped and tackled Katharine as she sat up. They wrestled on the bed, even in strength and size -- although they looked almost nothing alike except in the face, they appeared as the twins they were when wrestling. They each moved the same way.

:#:

Faith called them all together for lunch that afternoon to unveil her plans. Robin (her on-again, off-again boyfriend), Willow, Kennedy, Xander, and Andrew all sat at the table with her.

"Okay, you guys ready?" Faith asked.

"We've been ready since last night when you told us you had this little announcement," Xander said. "What is it, trouble with one of the Junior Miss Slayers?"

Faith grinned. "No. We're going out tonight."

"What did you dig up?" Kennedy asked. She leaned forward over her meal and grinned. "Vampire nest? Demon haunt?"

"Cool new club," Faith said.

"What, something like Willy's Bar back in Sunnydale?" Xander said.

"Nah, dance club," Faith said. She still grinned, and wondered who would be the first to figure it out.

Xander groaned and buried his face in his hands. Faith raised her eyebrows, surprised he was the first to figure out she wasn't talking shop at all.

Willow looked at Xander, concerned -- then her eyes widened and she turned to Faith. "You're not talking about fighting evil at all!"

Faith laughed out loud. The rest of the bunch, excepting Andrew, who bounced up and down in his seat, stared at her. "Okay, yeah, I'm not talking about evil," Faith said. Robin leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, and Kennedy looked disappointed. "Look, it's been a year since we set out with just a beat-up school bus, and we've done good. I think we deserve a celebration."

"A celebration of what? Doing our job?" Robin said.

Xander, Willow, Kennedy, and Andrew all backed away from the table. This sounded like the start of another Faith-Robin fight, and no one wanted to be caught up in that.

"No, a celebration of us," Faith said. "Look, we've all got something to celebrate here. We beat the First, but we never celebrated. Willow and Kennedy, they've been together a year, but they didn't get a chance to celebrate that. Robin, it's been a year since you were blessed with the hotness that is Slayer lovin', you should celebrate."

"What about me?" Xander said. "What am I supposed to celebrate? The one-year anniversary of the death of my former fiancÃ©?" Andrew looked down and fidgeted at Xander's words, but said nothing.

Faith kept her smile, though. "No, you have the most reason to celebrate, because your one-year self-imposed celibate period of mourning is now over even if I have to spend fifty dollars buying the lucky woman shots until she tosses you on the bar and rides you until the cops come and haul your sorry ass off to jail."

Xander stared at Faith for a moment before his serious face cracked. "Fine, fine!" he laughed. "Although -- now that I think of it -- I've never actually been with a woman who wasn't a Slayer or an ex-demon--"

"Or a praying-mantis monster," Willow interjected.

"--or some other sort of supernatural thing," Xander said. He grinned. "Should be interesting."

"Slayer?" Kennedy said softly. "You mean Buffy--"

"What about me, Faith?" Andrew said. Faith looked to him with relief; Andrew didn't mean to interrupt to save her an explanation of her night with Xander, but sometimes his clueless enthusiasm was a welcome thing. Sometimes. "What do I have to celebrate?"

"Uh..." Faith said. She blinked a few times, then grinned. "No evil! You've been evil-free for a year. That's a good reason to celebrate."

"All right!" Andrew said. He bounced in his seat again. "Evil free Andrew rules!"

"Also," Faith said, "you're the designated driver."

-:-


	3. A Matchbook With Numbers

**Chapter Three**  
**_A Matchbook With Numbers_**

Cole stood back in the shadows of the club -- well, the deeper shadows, "the shadows of the shadows," he would say were he in a poetic mood -- and watched the Slayer dance. She moved with the music, not to the music like everyone else in the club. She flowed with the song as he had seen only once before, back in the early eighties before he became a vampire. Her movements took her between people, couples or groups or singles, she cared only for the music which swirled her hair and her hips. She danced with everyone on the floor, or with no one; it could be either.

"Is that her?" Donner, his friend and sire, asked softly.

Cole shook his head slowly. "She's close, but..." he trailed off. It was hard to explain what he looked for. Luckily, his friend trusted him completely, so there was no need to explain. Donner knew that when Cole found what he looked for, the reward would be significant.

Cole turned and looked to the bar. An itch between his shoulders lead him there again and again, a feeling of power he continually failed to pinpoint. His shaggy, nose-length hair fell into his eyes as he tilted his head and squinted through the smoke. What he saw caused his lanky body to stiffen slightly.

Cole nudged Donner, who still watched the Slayer dance. "Look at the bar," Cole said. He indicated a group of four -- a small redheaded woman, an athletic-looking brunette woman, a small blond man, and a shaggy-haired brunette man -- who stood against the bar and chatted together. "You see the redhead?"

"Yeah," Donner said. He squinted for a moment. "I, uh, I think she's with the other girl."

Cole looked at his friend askance for a moment. "Yes, she's kinda gay, Donner, but I was going for something a little deeper than sexual preference."

Donner looked again, then shrugged. "Whatever it is, I'm missing it."

Cole shook his head. When he first became a vampire almost twenty years ago, he was astonished that he could sense different vibrations of power and energy that his older brethren -- including Donner, thirty-five years older than him and his sire -- missed completely. Now, though, he took it as a matter of course. And kept it from everyone he didn't trust.

"I don't know what it is, but she absolutely radiates power," Cole said.

Donner smiled. In his fifty-three years as a vampire, he had raised more vampires than he could count, but he knew that even were he to live another two hundred years, he would never match Cole. As a human, he had been a brilliant mathematician whose anti-social tendencies were legendary -- in fact, some circles in his former vocation still believed he was alive. As a vampire, the intelligence remained and was coupled with an insight that rendered his strength and cunning unparalleled. Within a year of being raised, Cole no longer followed Donner -- Donner followed Cole. There was no friction between the two, no conflict of ambition.

He looked more closely at the redhead, relaxed his senses the way Cole tried to teach him. "I feel a little something, but nothing like what you say," he said after a moment.

"How many mooks can you round up in the next half hour?" Cole asked.

"Not many," Donner said. "Three or four, tops."

"That's good," Cole said. "Meet me on the rooftop in an hour."

:#:

Katharine danced the entire dance floor. The energy within burned her up, kept her awake at nights unless she wore herself completely down to the point of abject exhaustion. She barely heard the music, only the beat to move to registered with her mind, but the lyrics fit her currently:

_I see you work at night and are you sexually amused? What's it like to have a room of guys encircling you? How she moves and how she walks, they all patiently await while the heat from in their pockets could burn marks into their legs..._

The song ended and she left the dance floor, sweaty and flushed. Quite a few guys watched her as she walked away -- girls watched, too, but very few in the same manner as the guys. She headed over to the bar, where the guys she came with (she certainly would never refer to them as friends; they were older and knew the door man so could get her in) leaned and drank and checked out all the other girls in the club.

Rick saw her coming and tilted his head at two girls, a redhead and a brunette, a few feet away. The girls held hands, and the redhead stole furtive glances at her companion every few seconds. A tall black man and short blond man talked with them.

"Check it out, Katie," Rick said. Katharine bristled; she hated the nickname Katie. Her name was Katharine -- so named after Katharine Hepburn -- and she had no desire to go by anything else. "You into that lesbian stuff like that?"

Katharine raised an eyebrow. She nodded at the bartender, who quickly grabbed her a Michelob Ultra Lite. One thing that was good about having rich parents who just wanted you out of the house -- bartenders worried less about legal ID when you tipped the hell out of them. Plus, the service went up.

"I don't know," she answered Rick. "Never tried it."

Rick looked over at his two friends, Danny and Brad. The three were off-and-on students at one of the local community colleges; not the brightest of guys, and fairly stereotypically misogynists. The things a girl does to get into a club.

"That's what I'm talking about," Brad said. "I love that whole bisexual girl thing."

"Yeah, that's the way a girl is," Rick said. "Bisexual girls, they're hot. Lesbians are for nothin', though. It's just some stupid political junk."

Katharine noticed the two girls were listening to the guys now. She cringed; the next comment would certainly be from Danny, the most offensive of the three.

Sure enough, Danny said, "Man, a lesbian is just a girl who ain't met the right guy yet."

The brunette pulled away from her girlfriend at that, and took a step closer to Katharine's gang. "No, idiot, a lesbian is a girl who's learned no guy is the right guy."

"Kennedy, don't!" the redhead said.

"Whatever," Danny said. "Five minutes with me, dyke, you'd be begging for more."

Katharine tried to defuse the situation. "Yeah, five minutes with you, she would be begging for more -- because you'd have finished four minutes earlier."

Neither person heard her. Or, if they did, they ignored her.

"Five minutes with you is six more minutes than I'd ever want, you asshole," the brunette -- Kennedy -- hissed.

Kennedy took another step forward, and Katharine slid between her and Danny. "Look, they're drunk boys, they're stupid. It's axiomatic. Just let it go," she said.

"It's what?" Kennedy said. Katharine winced; drinking always made her use big words other drunk people rarely recognized. "Who the hell are you? Get the hell outta my way!" Kennedy said.

"Kennedy!" the black man hissed from behind her. "Do you really think this is wise? Let it go!"

"Your friend's right," Katharine said.

"Well, I'm sick of taking this crap all time!" Kennedy said.

She glared at Katharine, a glare Katharine recognized. This Kennedy was angry and ready for a fight; nothing Katharine did would deter her. She might as well get in a few words before she had to knock the girl out.

"Yeah? Well, unfortunately, that's not my problem," Katharine said. "So just buy a drink, get a pink triangle tattooed on your ass, and go home and put that stupid tongue ring to good use, okay?"

Kennedy's eyes widened -- as did her redheaded girlfriend's -- and she moved forward. Before anything happened, though, a hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.

"What the hell are you doing, Munch?" the new girl said. She looked back at Katharine, did a quick once-over. "Who the hell's Lite Beer here?"

Katharine stared at the woman in front of her. They had a lot in common, physically: similar height, similar clothing, the same hair (although Katharine's was dyed, while this girl's was a natural deep brown, almost black color). Aside from the face, she looked more like she could be Katharine's twin than Audrey did. They both even had the same outfit on: black spaghetti-strap tank with blood-red leather pants and flat boots.

She looked like Katharine, but an older Katharine. More experienced. Sexier. What Katharine would look like in her early, mid-twenties. She made Katharine feel juvenile, immature, inadequate.

She hated this girl.

"Aww, look, mommy's here," Katharine said. "Guess you can't come out and play. No beat-down for you tonight."

"Don't be so sure yet, Lite Beer. You want to tell me what the hell is going on? I'm out to get a girl drunk for Boy Toy there," -- she jerked a thumb back at a handsome, shaggy-haired young man who blushed a bit at her words -- "but you got way too much of that underage, blew-the-bouncer-to-get-in jailbait look to you."

"Just piss off, skank," Katharine said. She turned back to the guys and was shoved forward by the new girl. Hard. She slammed into Danny and managed to keep her balance. Danny pushed her out of the way as he and Rick and Brad moved toward the other group. Kennedy and the new girl advanced toward the guys, as did the black man and Boy Toy.

Two huge bouncers stepped between the two groups before any punches were thrown. "Not happening," the bigger one said. He stood about six-seven, and his arms were about as thick as Katharine's waist. Everyone backed down.

Rick, Danny, and Brad walked away, and the bouncers backed off once the guys were gone. They kept an eye on the girls, but seemed much less worried about a fight breaking out.

"Lucky you, huh, Lite Beer?" the new girl said. "No beat-down tonight."

Katharine sneered. She hated this girl. "What, you think you're tough? You got no idea. Follow me, I'll show you what tough is."

"Five-by-five, Lite Beer," she said. The girl laughed. "Let's see just what you got."

Katharine nodded her head toward a side door. "See that door? Go out, go left, then around a corner there's a back alley. Five minutes."

"Faith, you can't take out a bunch of guns," the black man said into her ear. He spoke softly, but Katharine could still read his lips. "Don't be reckless."

Katharine laughed. "I'm not gonna kill her, man," she said. "I'm just gonna slap her around some."

She spun around on her heel and walked off before the new girl -- Faith -- could get a last word in.

-:-


	4. They're Truly Outrageous

**Chapter Four**  
_**They're Truly Outrageous**_

"You're not seriously going to follow her out there, are you?" Robin asked once the girl and her group left.

"Yeah, why not?" Faith asked. "Girl needs a lesson, yo."

"No kidding," Kennedy said.

"Kennedy!" Willow said.

"She does," Kennedy said.

"That's beside the point!" Robin grabbed Faith's shoulder and turned her toward him. "You're a Slayer! Your duty is to protect humanity, not beat it up in bar fights!"

"Hey, look, it's five by five, okay? Either she's a demon and I'm doing my duty, or she's just some girl and I'll take it easy on her. No big."

Robin seethed. He stared at Faith for a second, then turned quickly. "Willow, you gonna back me up here?"

Willow nodded. "I'm on Robin's side, guys."

Robin nodded. "Kennedy, you're not going to go fight some citizen behind a bar," he stated.

Kennedy glared at her Watcher, but said nothing. Faith looked over at her and shrugged, then turned to her Watcher. "Harris? Official ruling?"

Xander shook his head. "You better watch your ass out there, Faith -- but you know I've got your back. I've told you, I'm not going to dictate your private life to you. It's your party, cry away. But still, I think it's stupid."

"What the--" Robin cursed.

Faith grinned, and turned to Kennedy. "Know any Slayers who can back me up, in case there're vamps around?" she said.

Kennedy grinned. She tossed back a shot and slammed the glass on the bar top. "Yeah, some hot dyke comes to mind."

Faith laughed. Kennedy could be okay, once she had enough to drink. "Close enough to five minutes?"

Kennedy tossed a bill onto the bar and nodded. "Let's go."

:#:

Donner found Cole waiting on the roof of the club, deep in shadows, looking down into the alley where Katharine's gang waited for Faith and her friends.

Donner came up beside Cole. "How many?" Cole asked quietly.

"Three," Donner whispered, just as quiet. The three vampires, only five feet behind him, heard nothing. "This our meal?"

Cole smiled slightly. "This? No. This is--" He shook his head. "This is simply beautiful, Donner. Words hardly describe it. Two Slayers are about to fight, and I didn't even have to do a thing to bring it about."

"Oh, my," Donner said, his voice equally as dry as Cole's.

"I assume the only help you could find on such short notice was of the dumb and violent sort?" Cole asked after a moment.

Donner nodded. "Plans?"

"Forming," Cole said.

:#:

Faith led her friends toward the alley. Kennedy followed right behind her, almost beside her, but the others lagged behind -- especially Robin, Willow, and Andrew.

"Come on, guys," Faith said. "Aren't you all supposed to happily support me when I make some dumb decision? Isn't that what the Scooby Gang is all about?"

"I don't think your gang would be called the Scooby Gang," Xander said. "Maybe the Pips, or the Holograms, or whatever Rob Zombie's touring band is called -- but not the Scoobies."

"Five-by-five," Faith said. "I like that, Faith and the Holograms. That's sweet, Harris."

They turned the corner and saw Katharine's gang. They relaxed against a large pile of plastic crates which surrounded an old, beat-up mattress on the ground.

"Oh, I get it!" Faith said. "That's how you knew about this place: the mattress! It's where you earn your money for the cover charge, right?"

Katharine grabbed one of the crates and flung it at Faith. "You are going down!" she screamed.

Faith raised her arms just in time to block the crate. The impact thudded up into her shoulders, and she almost got knocked back a step.

"Aw, hell, guys," Faith said. "This chick's strong."

"What's wrong, skank?" Katharine said. "Don't tell me you're already too scared."

Faith laughed and walked forward. "Come on, Lite Beer," she said. "Meet big sister half way."

Katharine's face went blank for a second, then she shook her head and stared intensely at Faith. "You know -- every word out of your mouth, you make it so I'll enjoy this more and more."

:#:

"Wait," Donner said. "They don't know about each other?"

Cole smiled and shook his head. He wondered if the two would figure it out before one died, or if they would just assume the other was a vampire.

Cole knew that the world held more than one Slayer now, but he had no idea what brought that about. He believed it started about a year ago, but so far all his experiments brought vague data at best and faulty data at worst. He wondered if they Slayers knew about it, and how he could find out from them if he did.

:#:

The fight started out slowly. Both girls tested the other. Each girl believed she was superior to the other, wanted to prove that superiority by beating her with the minimum effort necessary. Faith threw a fancy roundhouse kick which Katharine countered by kicking out Faith's other leg from underneath. Faith hit the ground flat on her shoulders and immediately nipped up to her feet again. Katharine threw a quick jab at Faith; Faith met the girl's fist with her own, and the two Slayer's fists slammed together with a loud, sharp crack.

The blows went back and forth. They gained in strength, intensity, and cunning.

After a few minutes, Faith took a few steps back. The girl was good, and just as strong and fast as her.

"Finally," Xander said, "you gonna take this seriously and end it?"

"Yo, Munch, on guard," Faith said. "This ain't human. Too strong."

Katharine stepped back, too. Faith's strength and skill were far greater than anything she encountered before, and her words just confused her more. "What the hell are you talking about, freak?" she said.

"Red, you got a scan spell?" Faith said. She ignored Katharine's words, and concentrated only on her body movements. "I'd love to know what else we got around here."

"I'm on it," Willow said.

:#:

Cole turned to Donner. "Magic-user," he said. "She's too strong to miss us."

Donner nodded. He motioned the three vampires he brought with him to come forward.

"You three hungry?" Cole said.

"Of course," the largest said.

"Good." He pointed to the three guys with Katharine. "You three drop down behind them, work your way in. We'll hit the other side, make sure no one gets away."

The vampires nodded and hurried to get into position.

Donner looked at Cole. He knew Cole had no plans to drop into an alley with two Slayers and a powerful witch.

"Now we watch," Cole said. Donner nodded. Research -- he should've known.

:#:

"So what are you?" Faith said. Willow needed time for the spell, she knew; so she stalled. "Vamp? Demon? Something else?"

Katharine gave her a look that almost made her laugh. "Okay, skank, you got some problems," she said. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Come on, I already know--"

"Faith, from the roof!" Willow screamed.

Katharine spun around as three large humanoid forms dropped the three stories from the club's roof and landed lightly behind Rick, Danny, and Brad. The guys had no time to react before the three shadows grabbed them and bit down into their necks.

Faith and Kennedy rushed past Katharine and each engaged one vampire right as they dropped their prey. The third vampire saw Katharine, stunned and wide-eyed, completely frozen, and rushed toward her.

Xander charged the vampire and lowered his shoulder into him just before he reached Katharine. The vamp stumbled a step but quickly righted himself. Robin attacked from the other side, but even with a two-on-one advantage, the vamp was fresh from feeding and quickly had the two humans on the defensive.

Faith and Kennedy fared well with their respective vampires. Kennedy pounded on her vampire -- she accepted that her blows would be blocked, but her superior strength would still hurt him and make him more likely to attempt to dodge an attack, which opened up holes in the defense. Like the one where he ducked under her high thrust kick. She dropped her heel down onto the back of his head and drove him into the ground. Her stake came down from behind, and the vampire fell to dust.

Faith's tactics were similar, but slightly different. All the Slayers fought differently -- Buffy fought like Ali, stinging and jabbing and darting around to frustrate a foe into a fatal mistake; Faith accepted body shots she knew would only hurt for a moment to get the adversary to over-extend so she could land a heavy blow. Like the right-foot side kick her vampire aimed her way, which left him wide open for a thundering left-foot roundhouse to the head which flipped him over onto his back on the ground. Dust.

Katharine watched the third vampire grab Robin and toss him bodily into Xander. They both fell hard to the ground, and the vampire grinned. She saw the blood on his face; it dripped down his chin, not her friend's blood but still someone she knew, and Katharine felt her rage release.

She charged into the vampire much like Xander did, but far more effectively. Her shoulder slammed into his sternum, and she heard bone crack. A moment later, he slammed into the pile of crates and bounced forward to Katharine. She snapped punches and kicks one after another, and all hit the mark on the vamp. Six blows, and then a hard roundhouse right slammed her knuckles into the vampire's already-broken breastbone. He crumpled to the ground.

Katharine turned around to face Faith and Kennedy, who stood about ten feet away from her. "Okay, so what the hell--"

"Look out!" Kennedy yelled. She threw her stake to distract the vampire so Katharine could get away; there was no way the thrown weapon would actually hit the vampire's heart.

Katharine snatched the stake out of the air and spun, all in one movement. The vampire turned to dust, and she stumbled back in shock.

"Hey!" Willow said. "She's a Slayer!"

Katharine spun around. "What? I'm a what?"

:#:

And as Faith (and the Holograms) gave Katharine a quick explanation of Slayers and how she came to be one, one very interested and very intelligent vampire lurked in the shadows with his friend and listened intently.

-:-


	5. To Watch and To Slay, 'Till Death Do Us ...

**Chapter Five**  
_**To Watch and To Slay, â�˜Till Death Do Us Part**_

The first Watchers' Council meeting convened on June 11, 2003 in a small Des Moines, Iowa hotel room. Two-thirds of the attendants of the meeting had no idea it was a meeting, even, until Giles told them. Their reactions were decidedly different.

"I'm flattered," Robin Wood said.

"Are you insane?" Xander Harris said. "You want me to be a Watcher?"

The meeting degenerated into an inventive, x-rated cursing session for the next fifteen minutes, the proceedings lead by the Council's youngest member. Finally, after he covered various points including but not limited to: Giles's lack of sanity, Giles's lack of intelligence, Xander's lack of intelligence, and the anatomically incorrect positioning of various parts of Giles's body, Xander calmed down.

"What about Willow?" Xander asked. "Why me, and not Wills?"

"Well, for the most obvious point, you have never tried to destroy the world," Giles said. "However, primarily it is because I feel you are fully qualified, while Willow's role in the spell which awakened the Slayer line could cause conflicts between Watcher and Slayer beyond that which is normally there."

"Whatever it's worth, Xander, I think you have what it takes," Robin said.

Xander stared at Robin for a moment, then sighed and accepted the post.

The next order of business was to organize the Slayers, Slayers-in-Training, and eventual discoveries into some sort of system. They decided to designate Buffy, Faith, and Kennedy as Senior Slayers -- Slayers who have trained for at least two years, faced a variety of monsters, and needed little in the way of Watcherly guidance -- and assign one to each Watcher.

Obviously, Buffy remained Giles's charge. Both Xander and Giles assumed Robin would take Faith, as their relationship was going well. Robin balked, however; he felt an intimate relationship with a Slayer under his care would be inappropriate, so Kennedy was assigned to Robin and Faith was assigned to Xander.

The other six girls were broken up by their personalities. Giles, Robin, and Xander observed them and got to know them some, and then made a decision as to which girl worked under which Watcher.

Kim Cho-Ahn, the Chinese Slayer, went with Giles out of necessity -- no one else spoke even the slightest bit of Chinese. Helen St. Claire, a quiet and shy girl who was clearly uncomfortable with her newfound powers, also went with Giles. They believed the steady, soothing figure of the oldest, most experienced Watcher would help her to grow to know her powers better.

Janet Unger and Sharona "Rona" Davies, two outgoing and extremely friendly Slayers, were assigned to Xander. Physically, the two Slayers were nothing alike. Janet was almost six feet tall, had pale skin and pale blond hair, and a love of politics and debate. Rona was short, shorter even than Buffy, with thick curly hair and dark skin. She hated confrontation (although that trait didn't carry over into her Slaying duties) and often played the diplomat when Janet's debating turned into arguments with other Slayers.

Kimberly Mullin and Violet Brodengard, Robin's two Slayers-in-Training, were both fiercely independent women. The two often clashed ideals with Xander's Slayers -- just as Robin's ideals often clashed with Xander's. Vi and Kim stuck together but kept everyone else at a distance. Both were certain of the rightness of their calling, didn't worry about how the violence might affect them internally, and pushed themselves hard.

They moved to Cleveland. They bought houses, enrolled in schools, got jobs. They trained, and patrolled (each Watcher and his Slayers got two nights on the job, then one night off; the night off rotated so there were always six Slayers patrolling). They invented systems for the Slayers and Watchers, and protocols for new recruits to the fold -- both new Slayers and new Watchers.

For nine months, though, no one new came -- until Faith took her newly-named Holograms to the club.

:#:

Five months after he became her Watcher, Faith learned exactly what that relationship meant to Xander.

They patrolled the meat-packing district that night. The smell there, down by the docks, was terrible -- the ideal place for a demon who, in another location, would attract too much attention with its smell. Jacked-up by her Slayer-heightened smell of the place, Faith was in a very foul mood that night. As were Rona and Janet.

They came upon something outside of a warehouse -- Faith couldn't remember what, anymore; Janet found it, and all Faith cared about was that it meant she could take out her frustrations on a demon. Rona, as the smallest, drew reconnaissance duty. She climbed up to the vents in the roof and checked out the inside while the other three waited in shadows.

"Two of them that I saw," Rona said when she got back down. "Ugly nasties, but I don't recognize them."

"Hey, they're demons," Faith said. "Sounds to me like it's time we worked the mojo."

"What did they look like?" Xander asked.

"Not very big -- about my height," Rona said. She looked up as she thought about the demons. "Kinda flappy-looking, like their skin was melting off."

Xander swore. "Shuru Kosh demons," he said. "They're not overly strong or fast, but their skin is really thick and they have six-inch claws. They're hard to kill without weapons."

"We got our knives," Faith said.

"I meant more along the lines of swords," Xander replied.

Faith pulled her knife -- a ten-inch blade completely different from the one Sunnydale's Mayor Wilkins gave her years ago -- from the folds of her jacket. "I'm much more comfortable with Mr. Jeremy than I am with some sword. I say we bust in."

Rona and Janet drew their knives and echoed Faith. "Man, three-on-two, we got this," Rona said.

Xander closed his eyes and sighed. "Fine. Plan?"

Faith nodded and headed to the entrance. "Yeah. Watch hot chicks kick ass." Rona and Janet followed her, and Xander got an eyeful of arrogant Slayer strut before he followed after.

Faith kicked open a side door to the warehouse and the Slayers rushed in behind her. The two Shuru Kosh stood in the middle of the warehouse and stared at the three Slayers.

"Hey, yo, you guys speak English?" Faith said. The demons stared, and said nothing. "Well, that's cool. Getting killed's a pretty universal language."

She stepped forward, knife raised, and the demons advanced. Three six-inch claws shot out of each demon's hand.

"Whoa," Janet said.

"Shouldn't Stan Lee be suing these punks for copyright infringement?" Faith said.

"Wolverine was Len Wein and John Romita Sr.'s character, Faith," Xander said. "Not Stan Lee's."

"Whatever."

"I'm impressed you know who Stan Lee is, though."

Faith, Rona, and Janet met the demons in the middle of the warehouse and the dialogue stopped. For Faith, time always sped up in a fight. Everything was a rush. The rush of her blood, the rush of air past her face as she twisted and parried and dodged and struck, the rush of time as everything in her world faded away except the enemy in front of her.

Until her Watcher screamed her name from behind her.

"Faith!" Xander yelled. She jumped out of the fight and saw him running to her left with a four-foot piece of steel rebar in his hands. "More of them!"

She turned to the side and saw four more Shuru Kosh at a full sprint, claws extended. She turned and threw her knife into the neck of the demon closest to her; the demon staggered a step and its defenses fell before it did. Rona's knife plunged into its chest, and she grabbed Faith's knife from its neck before she pushed it away.

"Man, I had--" Rona said. She cut off and her eyes widened as she saw the four demons. She ran forward and gave Faith's knife back to her, and the two Slayers attacked.

Again, time sped up for Faith. Xander swung the rebar with little skill, but his complete lack of defense kept the Shuru Kosh on the defensive. Faith kicked in a kneecap and her knife found its mark for a second time.

"Rona, look out!" Xander yelled. He rushed forward and thrust the rebar into the face of a demon with his left hand as he used his right to shove Rona out of the way of the Shuru Kosh's claws. The steel knocked the demon back, but the claws still raked across Xander's middle.

Janet grabbed the off-balance demon from behind and viciously cut its throat. Another demon attacked Rona; she caught the downward thrust of its claws between the bones of her forearm and slammed her knife home in the demon's throat. Janet and Faith made short work of the last demon.

:#:

They wrapped Rona's arm with a strip of Janet's undershirt, and Xander held the rest of it to his bleeding stomach. The wound was fairly deep, but not all the way through the muscle.

Back at the house, Xander spoke up before any of his Slayers could. "Shuru Kosh demons, Giles," he said. "Thought there were only two, I said we could take them with knives."

"There were more?" Giles said.

"Yeah, four others in hiding," Xander said. "We got them, but it was close." He gasped as Willow cleaned his wound. "It was stupid of me. I almost got everyone killed."

"It was stupid of you, Xander," Giles said. He pulled off his glasses and cleaned the lenses. He turned and looked at Xander's Slayers, who either looked at Xander, eyes wide, or stared at the ground. "I trust you've learned from this." Giles left.

Faith, Rona, and Janet went to see Xander in his bedroom, where he recovered, the next day. Willow allowed them five minutes to check on their Watcher.

"Rona!" Xander said right as they entered. "How's the arm?"

Faith closed the door behind her and joined Janet and Rona at Xander's bedside. He lied flat on his back, and while his face was pale his eyes looked alert. He wore a white undershirt, and Faith could see the bandages around his middle beneath it.

Rona held up her arm, similarly bandaged, and shook her head. "It's a'ight -- Slayer healing and all that. You know the game." She dropped her arm to the side and looked down. "I'm so sorry I missed those other four!" she whispered. "I'm so sorry--"

"Hey, none of that!" Xander said. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Rona looked up at Xander. "You coulda been killed!"

Xander looked away. "That's always true." He looked back at Rona and grinned. "But I'm your Watcher -- it's my job to Watch your back."

"Yeah, does that include lying to protect us?" Janet said.

"You're my Slayers," Xander said. "Nobody gets to yell at you but me." He grinned for a second, then looked down. "Besides, I didn't lie. I'm the Watcher, I'm supposed to be the guy in charge. In the end, it's all my responsibility."

"Ain't your responsibility to jump in front of claws for us," Rona muttered.

"Hey, a Watcher's gotta Watch his Slayers' backs," Xander joked. "Anyway, you guys are Slayers -- if someone's gonna die, better some newbie Watcher whose biggest contribution to the fight is the names of the guys who created Wolverine, right?"

Rona and Janet gaped at Xander. Before they could say anything, though, Willow stuck her head in. "Times up, you three," she said. "Get out. Let him rest."

"Will, you're gonna kill me through boredom if you keep this up," Xander joked.

"Nice try, mister, but you're still there for the next week," Willow said. She looked at Faith and raised an eyebrow. "Out. Don't make me get all resolve-y."

Faith nodded her head to Rona and Janet. Outside in the hallway, she said, "I don't know about you two, but I'm heading to the training room. I need something to hit."

Rona and Janet agreed, and followed her to the basement. "I can't believe he said all that," Janet said on the stairs.

"Man's crazy," Rona said. "I can't believe he stuck up for us--like, I mean--"

Faith stopped on the stairs and turned around to face the younger Slayers. "That's just how X-man is," she said. "He jumps in without thinking, been that way since he was a kid."

"Well, he ain't a kid no more," Rona said. "He's our Watcher."

Faith looked at Rona and Janet. She almost felt everything click into place there, on the steps; her sister Slayers, their concern for their Watcher who had no idea of his worth or how much they needed him. "He ain't gonna keep himself safe," Faith said. "He doesn't think he's worth much. Never has." A thought hit her: some of the blame for that could fall to her and a night five years ago.

"He is worth much!" Janet said.

Faith nodded. "Guess that means we gotta keep him safe."

Rona and Janet looked at each other and nodded. "Five-by-five," they said together.

Faith grinned as she lead the way down to the basement training area. It felt good to belong.

-:-


	6. Welcome to the, Well, A Hellmouth

**Chapter Six**  
**_Welcome to the--Well, A Hellmouth_**

On most Saturdays, Xander and Robin worked on the car.

The car started its life with the Watchers as an old, beat-up piece of junk. Xander bought it from an auto salvage yard for two hundred dollars, all he could really afford after he splurged on the most realistic prosthetic eye he could find. The owner delivered the car to the garage on a wrecker -- no tires, busted transmission, cracked engine block, torn fuel line, rusted interior, and many other bad things.

Originally, though -- and what attracted Xander to the car to begin with -- the car was a 1963 Pontiac GTO. He went to the yard to look for a rear bumper for Giles's car (he let Buffy take it to the store; she almost made it before she hit something), and the car's promise of beauty captured him. Fix it! his mind screamed.

Robin, a California transplant from New York City, was originally disdainful towards personal transportation. He felt public transportation was the way to go; take the subway to the stop closest your destination and walk the rest of the way. The mechanical dissection of the engine -- figuring out what does what, what goes where, as neither Xander nor anyone else in the house knew much about cars -- appealed to Robin's yearning for new knowledge and quickly overcame his reluctance to focus solely on his Slayers and The Mission.

Work on the car went slowly. Time was scarce -- they had to manage six young women between them, after all -- and they still had to learn what to fix before they fixed it. They worked well together, though, despite methods and philosophies that were pretty much polar opposites.

:#:

"I can't believe we finally found one," Robin said the morning after they met Katharine Beckford.

"We didn't so much find one as get found," Xander said.

"Doesn't matter," Robin said. He reached deep into the engine to check one of the lines; when he straightened back up, he grinned. "We got one. She's gonna be safe."

"Safe as you can be, at least, while in this gig."

"Safe from herself, I mean," Robin said.

Xander nodded and indicated the car. "We get all the lines? You ready to flush it all out?"

Robin nodded. They worked together silently for a few minutes.

"How's she doing?" Xander asked. "She sleep okay and all that?"

"Guess so," Robin said. "Hope so. She's getting the tour and introductions with Giles now. She didn't seem too freaked out."

"At least she'll get to meet the other girls. Better than it was for Buffy -- she'll get to see she's not alone, not a freak."

"Yeah," Robin said.

They worked silently again.

:#:

Katharine stayed the night in the spare bedroom at the house Giles, Robin, and Faith shared. Giles woke her up at ten-thirty to give her the "Welcome to the Hellmouth," speech.

"Well, actually, not 'the' Hellmouth," Giles said. "A Hellmouth, more accurately. The term 'hellmouth' is just jargon for a physical location where there is a weakening of the barrier between this world and any of the numerous hell dimensions--"

"It's pretty obvious from the etymology, Giles," Katharine said. Giles stopped and stared at her. She stared back. "What?"

Giles shook his head. "Sorry. It's just, well, in all the possible scenarios I imagined resulting from the spell we cast to open the Slayer line, I never dared to dream we would activate someone who wouldn't mangle the English language beyond recognition, much less someone who would actually know what etymology is."

Katharine grinned. She imagined an intellectual man stuck with only typical teenagers for conversation for years, and immediately knew the frustration Giles must feel. "I like languages, you know?" she said. "How they work, how they developed, how they sound."

"That--that's wonderful," Giles said. He smiled -- not a smile to charm her or to flirt with her, but rather a smile of genuine warmth and friendship. A smile which made her happy to be the cause of it. "Dead languages have always been one of my hobbies. How many languages do you speak?"

"Several." She grinned. "Aren't you supposed to be telling me stuff?"

"Oh, yes, right," Giles said. He removed his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief kept in his coat pocket. "Come this way."

He led her to his office, where he explained the origins of the Slayers, how she was first a Potential and now a Slayer. He glossed over some of the finer points of Faith's history when he explained how there came to be two Slayers.

"On May 20th of last year, Katharine, you would have felt something," he said slowly. "We're not sure what that something might have been; all the girls I have been able to-- converse with, they were fighting with the Turok-Hans at the time, they remember very little, almost nothing, of the moment. Do you remember? Can you tell me anything? Even the smallest details will help."

Katharine stared at him; through him, almost. She remembered. Vividly. Audrey was supposed to die; she didn't. "I remember," she said. Her voice was flat and hard. "I-- let me write it down. I have to think, I think better with a pen than I do my mouth."

Giles smiled and nodded. "Yes, that works well for me, I will be able to study it better, share the information with others easier."

He stood and held his arm out. "Shall we go meet your fellow Slayers?"

:#:

Katharine was determined to memorize everyone's name the first time around. One of the few things her father ever taught her -- before she hit puberty and the idea of a daughter with breasts scared him away -- was how to memorize the names of everyone you meet. Repeat the person's name while you look them in the eyes, he said. Memorize a distinctive trait, something easily recognized, and assign it to the name. Repeat the name sever times in the initial conversation, as many as possible without coming off like an idiot.

Janet was tall, easy to remember for her height. Rona reminded her of Lauren Hill. Kim was cool, almost cold, and very stand-offish. Vi wore the ugliest hat Katharine had ever seen, and seemed very solid emotionally. Helen was shy and seemed eager to be accepted, even though Katharine was the new girl. Chao-Ahn -- well, Chao-Ahn was easy to remember, and gave Katharine a chance to show off.

"This is Chao-Ahn," Giles said. "She is from Shanghai and spoke no English when she joined us. She is learning, though."

"Hello," Chao-Ahn said. She smiled shyly.

"_Hello_," Katharine said. "_It's been about a year since I last practiced, so I apologize if my vocabulary is bad._"

Chao-Ahn's face lit up. "_You speak Chinese!_" she said.

"You-- you speak Chinese?" Giles said.

"Yeah. I took one of those tests when I was a kid, points out aptitudes," Katharine explained. "Mine was with languages, so I just started learning stuff."

"Oh, thank god -- my Chinese is quite possibly the worst in the entire Western hemisphere."

Katharine smiled. "_So, are you going to give me the gossip about all these people?_" she asked Chao-Ahn.

"_If you translate their stupid jokes,_" she replied.

:#:

Giles asked his two junior Slayers -- Helen and Chao-Ahn -- to stay with Katharine and get her into the Slayer routine. He pulled her aside before he returned to work to give her one last word.

"I want you to know that you do have a choice here," he said. "We do need information from you, that is true, but you do not have to become a Slayer like the girls here. Stay with us for a few days to make your decision, see what we do, how things go. Once you've told me about your Calling, you are free to go -- although I want you to know that we would love if you stayed."

Saturday was the Slayer day off, Helen told her once Giles left. They still patrolled that night, but training was minimal and studying was non-existent. The junior Slayers (all the Slayers under eighteen) lounged around in the living room to watch television, read, draw, paint their nails, or whatever struck their fancy.

"We train during the day with the senior Slayer in our group," Helen explained. "Chao-Ahn and I have been training with Giles for the past month, though, because Buffy -- that's our senior -- Buffy's been in Europe since late April."

"Training with Giles is better," Chao-Ahn said, "but Buffy more fun." She smiled.

"_You can speak Chinese, Chao-Ahn,_" Katharine said.

"_I know. I need to work on my English more, though._"

"We do our studying with our Watcher," Helen said. "Giles is the best, he's so smart--"

Helen cut off at the commotion across the room. "What is your problem, are you stupid?" Janet snapped at Kim. The two stood close to each other in the middle of the room, but not nose-to-nose. The other Slayers seemed unsurprised at the outburst, and Katharine got the impression they argued regularly.

"It's not my fault you like to keep your head up your--"

"How can you say it's bad there are more of us?"

"Just look at how things are going--"

"Yeah, we got ten Slayers now, there's barely a peep in Cleveland--"

"Yeah, in Cleveland--"

"And no one's died in a year--"

"Maybe Slayers should be dying!"

Janet stared at her for a moment, her mouth wide open. "Are you insane?"

"Think about it," Kim said. "Slayer dies, new one gets called -- never in the same place. So you get Slayers all over the world, killing vampires and demons, every couple years a new place. Now, all we have is a safe Cleveland--"

"You're out of your mind!" Janet took a step closer. "You want to be all alone, no one to stand with you when you're out there?" Katharine felt Helen shudder next to her. "Or, what, you just wanna be the hero, the one to do it alone--"

Kim stepped up into Janet's space and shoved her back. Janet darted back forward, but Faith appeared almost from nowhere to step between them. "X-man's gonna be pissed off if he's gotta fix the window I toss one of you through if you don't back off," she said.

Janet put her hand on Faith's shoulder for a moment, then turned and moved to the sofa. Kim glared at Faith -- not her senior, but Janet's -- but she, too, backed down from the only Slayer currently on the continent to ever fight another Slayer in earnest.

Faith turned to Katharine and smiled. "What's up, Lite Beer?" she said. "Glad you're here. You're gonna dig it -- plenty of people to punch." Faith winked, then left the room.

"Lite Beer?" Helen repeated once Faith was gone.

"Yeah." Katharine rolled her eyes. "What is she, the queen of stupid nicknames?"

Helen laughed. "Trust me, you got off easy. She got Shanghai and Tibet mixed up, but even after Giles corrected her she still insists on calling Chao-Ahn the 'Shaolin Monk', or just Shaolin."

"What's she call you?"

Helen stared at her with wide eyes and shook her head. So Katharine repeated the question to Chao-Ahn.

"_Helen is_ 'Tracy Lords'," Chao-Ahn said. Helen closed her eyes and turned bright red. "_I don't recognize the words or know the story, though._"

Katharine grinned. "_I do. I'll explain later._" She gently knocked her fist against Helen's knee. "I'm gonna go wander, I need to let some of this settle in. Be back in a bit."

Helen nodded. "Okay. I'll be here."

:#:

Katharine walked out into the garage with the intention of walking around the block, maybe, she wasn't sure. She just wanted to get away from the Slayers for a little bit. She stopped when she entered the garage and saw Xander and Robin with the car.

"Wow," she said. Robin and Xander looked up from under the hood and smiled. "That is one crappy car."

Xander and Robin looked at each other and laughed. "You should've seen it when we got it," Xander said.

"You like cars?" Robin asked.

"Nah, not really." Katharine walked over to stand in front of the engine, near Xander and Robin. "I had a crush on a gear head a few summers ago, though."

"We're certainly not gear heads," Xander said. "I'm actually a carpenter, in addition to being a Watcher -- I just like to put stuff together and fix things. I roped Robin here into helping me through vile trickery."

"Yes, you certainly come off as quite foul and deceitful, a worm of treacherous chicanery," Katharine said.

"Hey! Or, possibly -- thank you?"

Robin grabbed a rag and wiped his hands. "I'm going to go in and get a drink, make sure the girls haven't started a Whose-Ribs-Break-First contest or something."

Katharine raised an eyebrow. "They do that? Lemme guess -- Janet and Kim?"

"No, they're not that bad, but yes, those two are a bit competitive." He tossed the rag into a bin. "You two want anything?"

Katharine and Xander both declined. Robin left the garage. Xander and Katharine stood together for a moment and looked at the engine.

"You know anything about putting these things together?" Xander said. He immediately stuck his hand out and shook his head. "Already asked that. Sorry."

Katharine shrugged. "Not a big deal. I actually know a tiny bit -- acted all interested for Greg and all that, you know?"

Xander thought of all the times he listened to lectures on capital venture return and balloon loans and interest-bearing tax shelters. He smiled. "Yeah. I know how that goes."

"Audrey told me it was pointless, he wasn't going to notice me when he was working on the car. She was right. It didn't matter if I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, ready to work with him, or four-inch heels and a little black dress. All he saw was the car."

"Who's Audrey?"

Katharine paused for a moment. "Twin sister."

"Identical?"

"Yeah."

"So did you meet at summer camp, decide to cut your hair and teach her how to impersonate you so you could get your parents back together again?"

Katharine rolled her eyes. "Why is it that whenever I mention I'm an identical twin, people bring up The Parent Trap? I mean, that was just one actress, not even real twins."

"Well, you're the wrong hair color and gender for the Weasley twins."

Katharine grinned for a moment; it quickly faded, though. She just felt too nervous, too concerned about the whole Slayer situation, to sustain it. "If I ask you a question, will you give me a straight answer, and not the whole party-line political crap Giles and Wood give?"

Xander leaned back against the car and fixed his eyes on her. "Depends on the question, I guess. I might not know the real answer."

"What? They don't bother to tell the youngest Watcher everything, keep you in the dark some?"

"No, that's not it at all," Xander said. "We-- lost a lot of resources last year. The Watcher's Council used to be near one hundred people, based in London. Now it's three, here in Cleveland. Information doesn't come easy in this business. Pretty much ever."

Katharine sighed. "Sorry. I--" She looked up at the ceiling, then looked Xander straight in the eyes. "How come I'm the first Slayer you've found since you cast that spell?"

Xander took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Man," he said. "I should've known this was the question, huh?"

Katharine felt bad -- she didn't know why, but she suddenly understood that this was a question Xander asked himself often, something which he (and everyone else) felt a failing. "I--"

"No," he said. "You have a right to know. It's a legit question." He pursed his lips. "You ever hydroplane in your car, lose control for just a second?"

Katharine tensed. She refused to think about car wrecks, about Audrey, and concentrated on a moment a few weeks ago when she hit a puddle on the highway. "Sure."

"I lived my entire life in California," Xander said. "Not a lot of rain there. I'd never done that until I was here -- it rains so much here -- and I remember the way my heart just lurched and my entire body tensed up. It only lasted a second before the tires caught again, but man, I was freaked.

"That's how we all felt last year. Like how you feel when you first lose control of the car, except it lasted for the better part of eight months." He closed his eyes and shook his head for a moment. "We were losing. The town I grew up in, it was dying. People were leaving all the time. By the time the end was coming, it was like a ghost town. Nearly empty. We-- we had no idea what to do, who to trust, how to fight. Buffy had the idea to give the Potentials power... and we ran with it."

Katharine remembered Giles, earlier, when he told her that people died last year, failed to get out. He never said who, but she could tell someone close to Xander fell or got left behind.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

Xander shook his head. "So we get out, right? And -- surprise, things weren't how we thought they would be. I don't know why, Will doesn't know why, Giles and Buffy and Robin and whoever doesn't know why, but something different went down. And things here are pretty calm, for a Hellmouth, and..."

"It's easier to be reactive than pro-active?" Katharine said.

Xander grinned, a sad grin which made his eyes look sadder. "I've been in this gig since I was sixteen, I've never had time to be pro-active."

:#:

That night, Robin pushed Faith against the wall as she entered the bedroom and kissed her passionately. Faith kissed him back for a moment, then started laughing and turned away. "Hey, there, isn't this my line?"

Robin grinned. "A hot girl deserves to be taken every now and then, doesn't she?"

Later, in bed after things were done, Robin's legs bounced like a child's who couldn't sit still. Faith sat up and looked at him wryly, then his legs, and back to his face. "You know, as much as it should be the reason, I don't think my performance is what has you in such a good mood."

Robin smiled and sat up. "We found one, Faith! We finally found one." Faith could see the passion in his eyes, his face, as he spoke. "It's all gonna start coming together from here. She'll tell us how the spell hit, we'll be able to find others -- think of all the good we're going to be able to do, all the people we're going to be able to save when we get all these Slayers working with us!"

Faith smiled. Robin's enthusiasm and passion was infectious, but she worried sometimes about it being too much. "Just don't forget these girls are people, Robin, they're scared, and they're not necessarily going to see your bigger picture."

Robin chuckled. "You sound like Xander."

Faith's chin came up and her smile faded. "And, what, that's bad? He--"

Robin held up his hands. "No, no! There's nothing wrong with that. God, he'll never say it, but Xander cares just as much, or more, about the fight than anyone else. No one wants to do good and help people more than him. The only problem I have with Xander -- and, really, not a horrible problem -- is that he puts his Slayers' welfare ahead of the world."

"Oh, right, and it should be the opposite-- who needs individual Slayers when you have so many--"

"No! Faith, my mother was a Slayer, remember?" Robin shook his head. "Of course I think the Slayers are important as people. But so is everyone else. Both should be treated as equal, and decisions should be based solely on logic, not emotion.

"Xander cares about you and Janet and Rona so much, so personally. And we're in such a violent, deadly business." Robin paused, then chuckled quietly. "You know, if twelve months ago you would've told me that my two best friends here would be you and Xander Harris, I would've laughed. But it's true. I've gotten to know you two so well. And sometimes it's hard, because the chances really are good that one of us is gonna die sometime in the next five years. If not all of us."

Robin took a deep breath and continued in a softer voice. "And it's hard being a Watcher, because you know that one of your Slayers will die. Even with the greater numbers, it's inevitable. Or maybe I'll die, as a Watcher -- and I gotta be honest with you, Faith. I hope that's the case with Xander. I hate it, but I really hope he dies first, because I can't even imagine how much losing a Slayer is gonna devastate him."

Robin lied back on the bed, and after a moment Faith followed him down. She rested her head on his chest and quietly said, "What about you, Robin? How are you going to handle it?"

"I'll handle it," Robin said. "I'll be fine. I've been there before, remember? I lost the most important Slayer in my life when I was five."

Faith stared at the wall in the dark. "Oh," she said, and rolled over onto the pillow.

-:-


	7. The Ties That Bind

**Chapter Seven**  
**_The Binds that Tie_**

_Inside the body she knew; she knew who she was and who he was (although not who the other two were)_, but outside she had no idea who any of the four people were.

_Janine sat in the back seat of her boyfriend's car. Terror. Pain. Ken sat in the front. His mouth and nose bled onto his shirt, the shirt she gave him when he got his drivers' license two months ago and he wore for her tonight because he knew she liked him in it and now it had blood on it--_

_The man (thing!) on her right squeezed her arm. Pain. Pain! His grip was strong, too strong for a tall, skinny guy in his early twenties with floppy indie-rocker hair, and her arm hurt where he grabbed her._

_"For such an old man, Donner, you sure drive well," backseat guy commented._

Audrey watched (from where?) from above as the car pulled into a driveway. The drive led up the left side of the house, around the side and to the right once in the back yard. The car parked. A large man dragged a young boy, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, out of the car behind him.

_Janine cringed as Ken got dragged out of the car. The man beside her, Cole, made a "shoo" motion with his hand. "Ladies first," he said. She shuddered._

_He tripped her as she got out--_

A girl, about the same age as the boy, fell to the ground as she exited the car. A thin young man, perhaps in his early twenties, followed her out gracefully, lifted her off the ground.

"Now what, Cole?" the bigger man asked.

"Step one is to gather your materials. We have a house, humans, and vampires present and accounted for." He grabbed the girl and lead her to the house. "Step two -- state your hypothesis."

_Janine cried out as Cole yanked her to her feet. He looked her in the eyes for a moment; he seemed almost curious. "So. Do you have a key to this house?"_

_"N--no!" she said. Her voice came out quiet and hoarse, barely audible. "I don't live here, I've never even been here before!"_

_"Good," he said. He smiled, and she shivered. Her tears -- pain! -- increased. "Hypothesis: an invitation, in order to be effective, must be invoked by one who has a logical right to issue a social invitation to a home. Just any random human will not do." He turned. "Donner? Please use your key to open the door."_

_Donner grabbed Ken by the neck and the waist of his jeans and threw him. Ken smashed into and through the back door._

Audrey stood off to the side with a small blonde. "You're supposed to kill them, you know," the blonde said. "Steak to the heart, little sunlight. Don't fall off the log, but it's like that."

"Steak to the heart?" Audrey repeated.

"Oh, sorry!" The blonde giggled. "Typo. Wordo. I don't know. Count down from the seven-three-oh. Wait -- that last one was for me, not from me. You're more like six-oh, maybe nine-oh. It's muddled."

"What? I don't understand!"

_She could hear Ken moaning in pain, even over her own sobs. Pain. Terror. How did this happen? She wore pink tonight, her pretty color, with a bow in her hair and a condom sneaked into her purse to maybe give Ken a surprise--_

_"Invite me in," Cole said._

_"Come in!" she said. "Please, come in!"_

_He chuckled. "Not you. Him."_

_"Ken!" she said. "Invite him in. Please!" Stockholm Syndrome, she'd studied it--_

_Ken groaned. He shook his head, seemed to regain awareness. He looked up through the door. "Come in," he said._

_Cole looked over at Donner. Donner stuck his hand forward, to the doorway, and stopped. He shook his head._

_"Hypothesis proven," Cole said. He stared at Janine. "Ken, you have a choice. Stay in there and live, but she dies -- or come out here and save her, but die."_

_"Ken!" Janine shrieked._

_"I-- I don't want to die," Ken said. Tears and blood covered his face, a pink mixture like her shirt and--_

_"Chivalry," Cole said. He shrugged -- his face changed -- Janine tried to scream but nothing came out -- his head went forward--_

:#:

Audrey woke up and grabbed her neck. Her heart pounded in her chest as her lungs sucked in air, but the terror faded quickly as she immediately forgot her dream, just as she had trained herself to over the past year.

:#:

Tuesday night, after three straight days of Slayer training, Katharine snuck out of the house.

She had plenty of experience sneaking out of houses, dating back well before she inherited her Slayer powers. At thirteen, Audrey developed a crush on Daxter Jackson, a seventeen-year-old boy down the street who liked to make out with her in his back yard by the swing set there, and they spent the summer finding various exits to use without parental notice. Daxter had a cute friend, Jason, who would often make out with Katharine when he was over.

Reasons changed over the years, but they always managed to find a reason to sneak out -- Audrey more than Katharine. The secret, they finally realized, was to make noises their parents expected to hear rather than to try to hide all noise.

:#:

Xander led Janet and Rona into the cemetery -- Faith had to work that night, so it was just the three of them. He pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and held it up. "Whose turn is it to call it?"

"It's Janet's turn," Rona said. Her eyes scanned the cemetery already, and her hands opened and closed slowly.

"Heads," Janet said.

Xander flipped the coin. "Heads it is. What's our plan, Jan?"

He only half-listened as Janet laid out their patrol of the cemetery. For days now, since he talked with their newest Slayer out by the car on Saturday afternoon, he'd felt torn between two different aspects of his duty as a Watcher. His job was to locate and assess any girl who was potentially a Slayer, and the identical twin sister of a Slayer certainly qualified.

On the other hand, though, he'd watched Buffy and Faith and the other girls learn what it was to be a Slayer, and he knew how protective they could be about the boundaries between that calling and their personal lives. He remembered before the fight with Glory, when Buffy was so fiercely determined to protect Dawn from harm -- from everyone -- at any cost. He felt confident Katharine hadn't mentioned her sister to anyone else, and he also felt confident that any inquiries into that sister before she was ready to go there would drive her away.

It was also his job to look over and protect the Slayers, even the ones that weren't his. So he said nothing about Audrey Beckford, not even to Giles. It would come out soon enough. They had time.

:#:

Audrey's hug rocked Katharine back, same as always. Except now she knew why.

"Katharine!" Audrey said. "I'm so glad you're back."

Katharine smiled. She gingerly reached up and touched Audrey's hair, near where the scar from her brain surgery was. "I missed you," she said softly.

"Are you..." Audrey trailed off, looking for the right word. "Fine?"

"I'm good." Katharine paused for a second. In a rush, she said, "How are your dreams?"

Audrey's eyes opened wide -- Katharine never brought up her nightmares. She always kept the subject away from them, tried to let Audrey forget about them. "What-- Why?"

Katharine felt as shocked as Audrey looked. She meant to ease into the conversation about Slayers and vampires and such, not burst out with it before she got her sister prepared. She wanted Audrey to know what she was getting in to, to have foresight and have a choice; unlike Katharine got. "Do you still have those nightmares?" she asked softly. "The ones with the monsters and the girls?"

"I-- I don't know," Audrey said. "I don't remember dreams anymore. It..."

Katharine gently pulled her sister into her arms. "I know, Aud, I know," she whispered. "They're scary, and no fun -- but I think I know why you have them."

Audrey stiffened and hugged her tighter. "You do?"

Katharine nodded. She pulled back and smiled. "Let's go into your room, and I'll tell you all about it."

:#:

"So what do you two think of our newest Slayer?" Xander asked as they patrolled the cemetery.

Janet scoffed. "What, are all the Watchers doing a popularity poll?"

"I don't know if they are or not, and I don't care," Xander snapped. "I'm asking."

"Sorry," Janet said softly. "Just joking."

Xander felt bad -- he hadn't meant to snap at her, it just came out -- but before he could apologize, they answered him.

"I like her okay," Rona said. "She's kinda quiet, kinda distant, you know? Hard to get to know."

"She's got a bit of an intellectual snob attitude about her," Janet added. "It just--"

"Seems like she's hiding something," Rona finished.

Xander could understand that impression. He knew what she was hiding: a sister.

"Thanks," Xander said. "That's about what I got from her, but it's nice to see if you guys share my impressions."

They walked through the cemetery in silence a little while longer. Rona caught a vampire as it rose, and staked it easily. They walked some more.

"Hey, um, Janet," Xander said. "I'm sorry I snapped at you, earlier."

Janet smiled and shrugged. "It's okay. Bad joke. My bad, too."

"Joke? How do you mean?"

"You know -- all the Watchers asking their Slayers."

Xander looked at her for a moment, waiting for more. Nothing came. "Um, I'm afraid I don't get it."

Janet and Rona both stopped and stared at him.

Xander held up his hands. "Hey, that look? Not comforting. Go easy on the dense guy, cool?"

Janet and Rona looked at each other for a moment. "Yeah, sure," Rona said.

"It's just that there ain't no way Wood asks his Slayers about the new girl," Janet said.

"Come again?" Xander said.

"Giles might, but no way Wood's gonna," Rona said.

"Yeah," Janet said. "Wood's all controlling with his girls, all, 'The Slayer stands alone, responsible only to her duty and herself,' with them."

"Pretty much the opposite of how you are," Rona said.

"They seem to eat it up, though," Janet said.

Xander had no idea how to respond to that. "Um..."

Janet smiled. "Hey, we like it better your way, Harris." Rona nodded in agreement.

"Oh." Xander forced a smile. "Thanks."

Janet and Rona turned back to the patrol. Xander followed them, unsure of exactly what just happened, unsure if there was some sort of rift between the Slayers (and perhaps the Watchers) developing.

:#:

"So... I'm a Slayer?" Audrey said.

They sat together on Audrey's bed, legs crossed. Katharine held Audrey's right hand in both of hers.

"We both are," Katharine said. "Along with a bunch of other girls."

"You do remember -- I'm the one with brain damage, right?"

Katharine swatted her arm. "I'm serious, Audrey! I've met the girls, I've seen vampires kill and be killed. It's for real. You should come with me, meet Giles, talk with him. He's amazing. He's so smart and nice and -- just -- great! You should come."

Katharine looked at her twin and saw the skepticism on her face. She had to get her to understand, to believe, even if it meant pulling no punches and bringing up subjects she would rather avoid. "You are a Slayer. You wouldn't be alive, otherwise."

Audrey waited, but Katharine stayed quiet. "What do you mean, wouldn't be alive?"

"You were dying, Aud," Katharine said. "You were... hooked up to a machine, life support, and you were dying. I remember watching you get worse, nothing worked. I remember the day we became Slayers, but not because I felt the power go through me -- it took me a while to even feel that." She took a deep breath. "I remember that day because it's the day we were going to kill you."

"What?"

"We pulled the plug on your life support, Aud." Katharine squeezed her sister's hand tighter. "We never mentioned it because you got better, you survived, so it didnâ�™t matter. But it does. God, I remember it all, the way Dad talked and kissing you goodbye and--"

"Stop!" Audrey yanked her hand from Katharine's hands and pulled back her hair from her face. "How-- you--"

"I'm sorry," Katharine whispered. "I didn't want to tell you--"

The bedroom door slammed open against the wall. Katharine jumped off the bed and into a fighting stance before she realized it was just her father.

"What are you doing here?" he said. "What are you telling her?"

"Dad, I was just--"

"I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but whatever it is, stop," he said coldly. "God, Katharine, why would you lie to your sister like that?"

"What?"

"Are you trying to hurt us?" Katharine shrank back as her father continued. His soft, strong voice felt like a physical force, pushing her down, more powerful than all the Slayer strength she had and more. "Are you striking back from some perceived slight? Do you want something? I just don't get why you would do this."

"I'm not lying!" Katharine looked at Audrey. "Please, aud, you gotta believe me, I'm telling you the truth about everything--"

"Katharine, please!" her father shouted. "Can't you just leave her alone, why do you have to lie to her--"

"I'm not lying to her! You are!"

Her father stared at her, livid, for a moment before he exploded. "Get out!" He thrust a hand toward the door and grabbed her upper arm with his other hand, pushed her toward the door. "Just get out of my house, you lying bitch!"

Katharine easily shrugged his hand off her arm. "Audrey, please," she said. "Please, I'm telling you the truth!"

"I said get out!" her father roared. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her toward the door.

And Katharine shoved back.

Her father left the ground briefly before he slammed against the wall on the far side of the room. His head bounced against the sheetrock, left a slight dent. He slumped down some, but managed to keep his feet.

Katharine's hands covered her face as she stared at him, horrified. "Oh, God, Daddy," she whispered. "I'm so sorry."

"I said to get out," he growled.

Katharine looked over at her sister, who still sat on the bed. "Aud?"

Audrey looked at her for a moment, then turned and looked over at their father. She glanced at Katharine again and said, "Slayer strength, huh?"

"What? What are you talking about?" their father said. "She's lying to you, Audrey, baby. She's lying."

Audrey stood up and shook her head. Tears glinted in her eyes as she said, "No, she's not. You are, Daddy. I'm sorry. I love you. But... I'm going with her."

He straightened. "Audrey? Sweetie?"

Katharine held her hand out to her sister. After a slight hesitation, Audrey reached up and took it, and they left together.

-:-


	8. You Have One Unheard Voice Message

**Chapter Eight**  
**_You Have One Unheard Voice Message_**

Robin and Xander met Giles in his office at seven-thirty the next morning.

Giles was asleep the previous night when Katharine knocked softly on his door. "I brought another Slayer with me," she said, her nonchalance obviously rehearsed in her head. "This is my sister, Audrey." He got her set up in Katharine's room with some of Faith's spare pajamas (although, technically, _all_ Faith's pajamas were spare pajamas) and some blankets, and went back to sleep. He got the impression Katharine hoped for more of a scene, or at least someone from another house to get woken up.

He called Xander that morning and asked him to come over before work.

Xander came in with just jeans and a t-shirt on, not his normal work attire. "Called up the office, told them I can't make it in before lunch today," he said, "so I'm all yours. What's up, boss?"

"Well, I, um, I actually only needed about ten minutes of your time," Giles said.

"S'ok, I needed a morning off." Xander shrugged. "Maybe I'll play with the car or something."

"Right," Giles said. He pulled off his glasses and polished them quickly.

"Rupert, please," Robin said. "I hate to be pushy, but--"

"Right, yes, of course," Giles said. "As I told you earlier, last night Katharine Beckford snuck out and returned with her sister, Audrey. She seemed quite convinced that her sister is a Slayer."

"They're identical twins," Xander said. Robin and Giles stared at him. "She mentioned her Saturday, when I was working on the car. I didn't say anything because I was afraid she'd bolt if I did."

Robin blinked. "Why--"

"I do believe that was wise of you, Xander," Giles said. "Katharine seems very protective of her."

Robin crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, but said nothing.

"I want to hold off on assigning either girl to a Watcher," Giles said. "We should all three work with them, both together and individually, and see how they interact with our Slayers." Giles looked at each of them for a moment. "Is this agreeable?"

"Certainly," Robin said. "I think that's the wisest thing to do at this point."

Xander shrugged. "Party on, Wayne."

Giles eyed him for a moment, then shook his head and said, "Right. I will see both of you this evening, and we can work out a schedule for the girls."

"Want me to get them over to Buffy's, get them into the training schedule?" Robin asked.

"Have Faith do it," Giles said. "Best to establish the routine now, if they plan to stay here."

Robin nodded, and he and Xander left. Giles took a deep breath and opened a book on his desk. It was almost pointless to have Xander come by for such a short meeting, but managing the Watchers and Slayers was a delicate business. He didn't want to exclude anyone from the decision-making process, to make it appear if he favored Xander above Robin or vice-versa; however, at the same time, both men combined lacked even the slightest amount of Giles' experience, so he had to remain in control at all times.

He also noticed that, despite the strong friendship between the two (and who saw _that_ coming?), they had almost polar opposite views on Slaying, Watching, and the redevelopment of the Council. They got along just fine, but the drama seemed to play out every several weeks between their Junior Slayers -- especially Janet Unger and Kimberly Mullin.

Yet he couldn't think of anything to do to head the confrontations off.

His thoughts drifted to the two newest Slayers, Katharine and Audrey. Audrey seemed quiet and shy; he wondered what about her made Katharine so certain she was a Slayer. Even the identical twins link didn't ensure it, as far as Giles understood, since being a Slayer was a connection with the soul and not the body. But that was merely theory; perhaps the soul derived from the body? No way to be sure, but it was interesting speculation.

One thing which bothered him about Katharine was that she reminded him of someone, but he couldn't pinpoint who it was. He couldn't even pinpoint what it was about her that triggered the recognition, or what period of his life the person was from. It didn't even seem to be something specific, just a general feeling from the way she looked up at him.

Mysteries he couldn't solve with books bothered him.

:#:

Kennedy hung up the phone and ran upstairs to the room she shared with Willow. She found her girlfriend at her desk, doing something on her laptop.

"Hey, sexy, whatcha doing?" Kennedy said.

"Oh, um, upgrading the firmware on the wireless router."

Kennedy blinked, confused. "When did we get a wireless router?"

"Well, um, we didn't," Willow said. "I noticed a few days ago -- after you helped me rearrange the bedroom -- that I was getting a faint signal on my wireless card when I faced the window. So I checked it out, and the neighbors have a wireless router hooked up, no password or anything."

"So you've been leeching," Kennedy said.

"Well, yeah." Willow looked sheepish at being found out. "They've got a really fast download, and it's 802.11g protocol and--"

Kennedy kissed Willow to shut her up. "I have no idea what you just started talking about, so I decided to interpret it as 'Kiss me'."

Willow beamed. "I like it when you do that."

They smiled together, a moment when the outside world no longer existed and it was just the two of them together. Kennedy blinked and looked down. "Guess who just called?"

"The neighbor?" Willow sounded worried.

"No, Faith."

"Really?"

"Yup." Kennedy paused for a second. "You know, I'm almost starting to get okay with Munch as a nickname?" she said. "Tell anyone and I denounce you as a liar."

Willow laughed. "You just like it because you're so good at it."

"Oh yeah?" Kennedy said.

They got distracted for a few minutes...

"So what did Faith call about?" Willow finally asked.

"Oh yeah! We got another new Slayer last night -- Katharine's twin sister or something."

"Oh. Cool."

Kennedy looked at Willow; none of the excitement she expected showed. Her face was blank and withdrawn, and she bit her bottom lip. "Will, honey, what is it?"

"I just..." she trailed off with a sniffle. "I worry about all those girls we haven't found yet. It's my fault they're out there, that I made them Slayers and gave them all these powers they don't understand and nightmares they won't get and I can't find them, no matter what I do the spells just don't work the way I want them to -- it's like I changed something when I cast that spell and I'm so scared that I screwed everything up and--"

Kennedy grabbed her and pulled her into a hug, held her tightly as she sobbed against her shoulder and neck. "Baby, it's okay, you did great, you never did anything wrong," she whispered as Willow's body trembled. "It's not your fault we can't find anyone. It's not your fault."

:#:

Katharine and Audrey hung out in the living room of Buffy's house with Helen and Chao-Ahn as Robin's Junior Slayers, Kim and Vi, cooked breakfast.

"Normally, Andrew cooks for everyone," Katharine explained to her sister. "But he's out of town on an errand for Giles right now. He's sort of our traveling agent -- whenever something needs to be done out of town, Andrew goes."

"Thankfully," Helen said softly.

Katharine looked confused for a second, but covered it up. "Uh, yeah," she said.

Helen smiled at Audrey. "He's amusing at first, Andrew is, but after a month or two, you'll figure out why he's the one who goes."

Audrey nodded and hid a smile as Katharine glared at Helen for a moment. Her sister always tried to be so cool and quick to catch on, and whether or not Helen's "month or two" comment was meant to be a dig at how new Katharine was, she knew Katharine would certainly see it as such.

"When Andrew gone, Junior Slayers rotate cooking," Chao-Ahn said. "Andrew cook better."

Audrey smiled at the Chinese Slayer, and Chao-Ahn grinned back. She really liked Chao-Ahn; the idea of traveling halfway across the world to fight against evil, not knowing the language or any of the people around you, was very noble and romantic. She thought Chao-Ahn must be a very deep, strong, and stoic woman.

"So you holding up okay with all this, Aubrey?" Janet asked. She flopped down onto the floor beside Helen.

"Audrey, not Aubrey," Katharine snapped.

Janet smacked her palm against her forehead and grinned ruefully. "Ack! Sorry. Audrey. Audrey." She mouthed it silently one more time. "All right. Got it. So, you holding up okay with all this? I tell you what, it freaked me right out when I first heard and saw it, and I ain't one to freak."

"It is a lot," Audrey said slowly. Four girls around her -- this was more people at once than she'd talked to in a year. "I mean, evil as a presence in the world? Sounds like a comic book, you know?"

"Whatever," Katharine said. "I mean, I knew there was pure evil in the world since October 30, 2002."

"Gosh, that's a bit specific," Janet said, heavy on the sarcasm. "What happened then?"

"That's the day someone thought it was a good idea to shoot Jam Master Jay."

Janet snickered. "Okay, yeah, I can dig that." She shook her head. "So, you got any Watcher preferences yet?"

"I have only met Giles," Audrey said.

"Yeah, but Giles rocks," Katharine said. "He's so smart, he knows so many languages. We were talking the other day about how much different English is than any other language around, how it's got roots in tons of different languages and double the vocabulary of the next two largest active languages around--"

"Whoa, girl, sure you don't want to just _be_ a Watcher?" Janet said.

Katharine blushed. "No, it's just -- interesting, you know? I like etymology."

"Mom and Dad got her into words young," Audrey said.

"True," Katharine said. "But it's not all I'm interested in. It's not all I like. I mean, I talked to Harris for a while, and he's really cool, too." She paused for a second, then asked Janet, "It doesn't bother you that he's so young, though?"

"Not at all," Janet said. "He's been around, man. Started this gig when he was sixteen, a sophomore in high school. He gets what it's like to be out there, you know? I can just look at him and I know he's been there and it's gonna be cool."

Katharine smiled. "Yeah, Harris does have nice eyes, doesn't he?"

Audrey smiled at Katharine's teasing of Janet, but it quickly faded as everyone else -- Helen, Chao-Ahn, and Janet -- quickly stiffened. "Ha, ha," Helen said coldly.

Katharine looked at the three Junior Slayers, confused. "What?" They glared back at her. "I don't get it. I -- I was just teasing you, Janet, you seemed into him even though I know you're not." The glares continued. "What did I say wrong?"

Helen tilted her head. "You mean, you didn't notice his glass eye?"

:#:

Faith listened in to the Junior Slayer's conversation from around the corner, and snickered as Katharine stammered over missing Xander's glass eye. He'd be happy to hear the story, she thought; he always worried the thing was obvious and off-putting.

She turned as she heard the door to the garage open. Xander walked in, and she smiled. "Hey."

He held out a mobile phone for her. "Found it," he said.

"Sweet. Harris, you rock," she said. She'd misplaced her cell phone the previous evening before she went out to work, and had to call Kennedy this morning with Robin's. "Where'd you find it?"

Xander chuckled. "Couch cushions. Looked everywhere for it, just about, got frustrated and sat on it by mistake. You've got a message, so it, ah, vibrated in a place where I don't really care for things vibrating."

"Failed the gay test again, huh?"

"Alas, yes, I did. Which, technically, is good, since you're dating the only guy I know in Cleveland anywhere near my age."

"Aw, Harris, you know I'd share with you."

Xander shook his head and walked back out to the garage. "Yeah, and it frightens me," he said over his shoulder. "I'll be in the garage if you need me."

"Five-by-five," she said.

She flipped open the phone and punched the button for her messages. The reception in the house was bad, but she didn't want to go outside unless she couldn't understand it at all.

"_kshhh... --aith, I'm--kssh --or Reilly_," the message said. "_--bout Angel... kshhhh... --all me back..._"

Faith closed the phone with a quick snap. She paged through the recent calls and found the unidentified number second in the list -- California area code. It was barely past five in the morning out there.

She walked out the garage door and out to the front yard. Five in the morning or not, if the call was from Riley about Angel, she'd wake him up without the slightest bit of guilt.

-:-


	9. To Remain or Fade Away

**Chapter Nine**  
**_To Remain or Fade Away_**

_His father took the knife from his hand, shifted it slightly, and then squeezed his hand back around the hilt. "There," he said softly. "That grip will give you better leverage for thrusting, yet still allow you to slash and cut as before."_

_He tested the weight of the knife in his hand and smiled. As always, his father was right. Of course he was right; there was no way either of them would still be alive, with all the demons and other enemies around, unless his father knew what was right. He shifted his gaze from the knife to his father, basked in the smile he saw there. The background music started, "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, And they're like, it--"_

--Wait. "Milkshake"?

His hand reached out from under the covers and grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand. He flipped it open and mumbled, "Yeah, it's Stephen."

"Yo, it's Faith," a female voice said. "Riley there? He called about Angel last night."

Connor sat up in bed, fully wakened by Faith's voice.

He'd thought about calling her for almost a week. When Angel told him to go home after the fight at Wolfram & Hart, he promptly disobeyed and followed him to the alley behind the Hyperion. He watched the demon army approach to destroy the remnant of Angel Investigations, and recalled his real father's last words to him: _As long as you're okay, they can't_.

So he ran.

No one understood why he was so morose the next few days, as he undertook Angel's favorite pastime and brooded. His mind ran through all the things which led to Angel working at Wolfram & Hart -- the central factor being, of course, Connor's own death. He didn't know the specifics, but he knew he was alive due to an agreement Angel came to with the law firm. He brooded over the last year of his life, when he fought against Angel as often or more than he fought with him, and naturally that led to thoughts of Angelus, which led him to Faith.

He remembered her well (a strong, sexy older woman -- of course he did), and he remembered what she went through to get Angel back, to restore his soul. He remembered her fighting through pain, always holding back from the kill and absorbing punishment to give the rest of the guys time to perform the spell to restore Angel's soul.

He decided she would want to know about Angel -- that she _deserved_ to know. He spent the next few days scouring the internet for listings, and finally found her two days ago in Cleveland, Ohio. It took a full day to get the nerve to call her; she wouldn't remember him, would have no reason to believe him. Still, she deserved to know regardless of his discomfort, so he called last night.

And now, she called him back. At five in the morning.

"No, that was me who called, Faith," he said. "My name is Connor Reilly, I -- I was a client of Angel's at the law firm."

"Oh," she said. "So how the hell do you know about me?"

Connor considered his words for a moment before he spoke. "Angel and Wesley, they gave me the knowledge I needed to defeat a demon who wanted to kill me," he said, dancing lightly around the truth. "I got to know Angel pretty well then, how highly he thought of you."

"Yeah, that's great," she said. "So, what, you just wanted to call me, see if the legend measures up? I can assure you, it don't."

"No," Connor said. He took a deep breath; it was hard, even now, to think about what he had to tell her. "I've got bad news, Faith. About Angel."

:#:

Xander worked on the car's interior while Faith stood outside the garage. There was a small patch of good reception to the side of the garage, the only place on the entire block where cell phones seemed to get more than two bars of reception clarity.

She was close enough for him to hear her conversation, especially as the car's doors were leaned up against the garage walls rather than actually on the car, but he didn't pay attention. The car's engine was going slowly, but the interior was really starting to look nice. The newest addition was a wood steering wheel Xander made from scratch and attached to the steering column; he also designed and made a wooden dash display for the speedometer, odometer, and other gauges.

He stopped what he was doing, though, when he heard Faith's breathless, "Oh my God."

He strained to hear more, but there was nothing. The tone worried him; he'd never heard anything remotely like it from Faith, even after working with her for over a year in some pretty tight spots. He climbed out of the car and slowly made his way around to the side, where he found her.

She just stood there, in her workout clothes, with her phone at her side in her limp hand, about to drop. Her mouth was slightly open, and she stared across the street, her eyes vacant.

"Faith?" he said, hesitantly.

"He's dead," she said softly.

"Who's dead?"

"Angel." She blinked and turned to face him. "Angel's dead. Dead."

Xander closed his eyes for a brief second before he took a step closer. "I'm sorry," he said.

"He-- he took out Wolfram & Hart, him and his team, and the Senior Partners sent an army to kill them immediately afterwards," Faith said. "They went down fighting."

Xander bit his lips, unsure what to say. "I'm sorry," he said finally. Weak, useless words.

Faith shook her head. "I should've been there, with him."

"What?" Xander stepped up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. "Faith, that's crazy talk. You stay here, you belong here--"

"I belonged there, with him, fighting by his side!" she said.

She hit him in the chest with an open hand, not as hard as she could but hard enough to stagger Xander back half a step. "I should've believed in him! He believed in me! I should've been there! I should've died with him!" Xander stepped forward and put his hands back on her shoulders, even though each outburst was punctuated with another half-hearted strike to his chest. "I should've died, but I never do! I'm always the one who lives, but I'm the one who deserves to die!"

Xander pulled her close into his chest. She struggled, but not hard enough to get away. She pummeled his chest, but not hard enough to make him let go. "Shh, Faith, it's okay," he whispered into her hair. "You deserve to be alive, you deserve all the good things you have and more."

Faith hit him harder and harder as he continued to console her and reassure her. He didn't hear her anymore, and he doubted she heard him. It didn't matter, this time. It was like before -- not the time she tried to kill him, when he came to offer his help, but up on Kingman's Bluff with Willow. The point wasn't what was said, but what was done. To be there for her. He didn't back down there, on the edge of armageddon, and he won't back down for Faith, either.

Faith hit him one more time, hard against his chest -- hard enough to knock the breath from him -- before she collapsed against him completely. Her choking sobs wracked her body as she trembled and he held her.

How small she is startled him, as she sobbed in his arms; despite her superior strength and her swagger, he has a good six inches and probably near eighty pounds on her. It reminded him again of Kingman's Bluff, when Willow collapsed into his arms, also sobbing. So much power into such tiny women. He remembered how Willow sobbed, he remembered how Buffy cried when they mourned Spike and Anya the night after they left Sunnydale. The weight of the world on their shoulders, and they try to hold it all in until there's no more room for anything but pain.

:#:

Faith wiped her eyes after she stopped crying and looked around. "God, I hope no one saw that," she said.

"No worries," Xander said. "Just me, no one important."

"Hey, whatever, Harris. If I'm important, you're definitely important."

Xander rolled his eyes. "Sure thing."

Faith looked up at him, then looked at the ground. "Listen, uh, thanks," she said. "I'm sorry about that--"

"Don't be," Xander said. "I'm your Watcher, right? It's part of the job to be there for you."

Faith nodded and kicked the ground. "Right. Part of the job."

Xander grinned and bumped his shoulder into her. She looked up, confused, and he said, "I'm also your friend, Faith. It's part of that job description, too."

Faith smiled, obviously pleased, and quickly looked away. The smile stayed, though. "Yeah. Part of the job."

"You five-by-five?"

Faith laughed and punched his shoulder. "You're jacking my line, Harris."

"Ow!"

"I'm cool, though, yeah. Thanks." She pursed her lips and her smile faded. "Do me a favor, though? Don't tell anybody yet. About Angel, I mean. I... I wanna tell B when she gets back. I think she deserves to know first."

Xander nodded. "Sure you don't want me to tell her?"

"I'm sure. Thanks, again." She smiled one more time, looking him in the eye, and went inside to train.

:#:

Stockton thought it was weird that this guy, this Joseph Coleman, wanted to meet at ten-thirty at night. The guy called during the day, said he wanted to meet about some surveillance, and requested the odd meeting time. Said he'd pay well, then hung up.

Stockton didn't care much about getting paid well. Just getting paid would be a big step forward.

He lost his PI license four years ago as the result of a long string of bad luck. Most of the bad luck stemmed from alcohol and screwing over clients, but he didn't see it that way. The world was out to get him.

Joseph Coleman knocked on his door at exactly ten-thirty. "Yeah, come in," Stockton called out from behind his desk. He tried to act like Jack Nicholson from Chinatown; people seemed to expect that from a PI, and his business depended on people being happy with what they got.

The door opened and a guy in his early twenties stepped in. He wore a nice suit, charcoal gray, a little loose in the shoulders and waist. The guy obviously didn't get a lot of sun, and the dark suit and his dark hair only emphasized that.

"Hello," he said. "Joseph Coleman. I called earlier."

He held out his hand to shake, but Stockton ignored it. "Yeah, I remember. I'm Stockton. Whatcha need?"

Coleman tilted his head and stared; his eyes were hard, especially for a young kid. Eyes didn't lie, Stockton knew, and his evaluation of Coleman changed. The man was dangerous, intelligent, and merciless.

"I want some houses bugged," he said. "My sister joined some cult. She's eighteen, so the courts can't do anything about it. I want to get her back, make sure she's safe. I understand that you don't mind going around the law at times, so I called you."

"Residential neighborhood?" Stockton asked. If the guy wanted to get straight to business, he could deal with that.

"Yes."

"Unless you got a place we can set up near there, it'll be hard to stay outta sight," Stockton said. "Tinted vans on the curb ain't too subtle."

"I have resources," Coleman said. "Just not the knowledge or equipment. If you want a house, I can get it. Money is no object. I want my sister back, Mr. Stockton, and safely."

Stockton nodded. He tried to play it cool; this guy could make him some serious bank if he played it right. "I understand. If you can get us a base, bugging probably ain't the way to go. Directional mics can pick sound up from hundreds of feet away, and we don't gotta get inside the houses to set that up."

Coleman nodded. "Good." He passed a sheet of paper across the desk to Stockton. "Here are the addresses of the three houses, along with a phone number to contact me. When you have the plan together, call me and tell me what you require from me."

Stockton glanced down at the paper. Three addresses, all on streets he knew to be parallel to one another, and a phone number, probably a cell phone with the first three digits it had. He looked up at Coleman. "I'll call you tomorrow afternoon, sir."

Coleman nodded, and turned to leave.

"What type of cult is it?" Stockton asked. "If you donâ�™t mind me asking."

"Doomsday cult," Coleman said. He opened the door to leave. "Vampires, demons, that sort of thing. Preys on young girls, fourteen to twenty-five. Nasty people, Mr. Stockton. Be very circumspect." He turned to stare at Stockton. "I would be very upset were they to learn of our activities."

Stockton swallowed hard, and nodded. Coleman left, and he pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He'd been threatened by many people over the years, but none held the quiet menace Joseph Coleman had.

Time to get drunk, he thought. He could price the equipment -- and his time -- in the morning when he woke up.

-:-


	10. Slayers In A Coma

**Chapter Ten**  
_**Slayers In a Coma (I Know, I Know, It's Serious)**_

Giles picked Buffy and Dawn up from the airport on June third. Their flight came into Hopkins Airport in Cleveland (from Rome via Newark International) at three in the afternoon, and the sisters rushed through the departure terminal to get to the front of the other passengers.

Giles smiled as they hurried toward him. the time off in Europe obviously agreed with the sisters. They both had dark tans; Buffy's hair was a brilliant sun-bleached blond, and Dawn's hair had lightened considerably from the mousy brown the Cleveland winter left it.

Their sense of mischief also grew in Europe, as Giles quickly learned.

"Oh, Rupert!" Buffy cried as she threw herself against him -- in a decidedly non-Buffy manner. "I've missed your manly ways!"

Dawn pressed herself up against his other side and said, "Rupert, take me home and spank your naughty girl!"

Giles gaped at them and stuttered in shock. "Buffy-- Dawn, I-- you want--"

A pair of nuns walked by, departing from the same plane as the Summers girls. Their disapproval was obvious, as they glared at him and spoke quickly in Italian.

The nuns passed, and Buffy and Dawn broke down into giggles. They let go of Giles and collapsed against each other.

Giles removed his glasses and administered a vigorous polishing. "I do believe that was in rather poor taste," he said. "And nuns!"

Buffy looked up at him with the charming, guileless smile they both knew he could never resist. "Come on, Giles -- I just like to mess with the clergy." She held out her arms and cocked her head to the side. "I missed you. Don't I get a hug?"

Giles hugged her and murmured into her hair, "I missed you, too, Buffy."

Buffy stepped back and Dawn stepped forward to hug him. "I missed you, too, Giles," she said.

:#:

"So, you totally didn't have to send Andrew to Italy to get that book," Buffy said. They all rode in his car back to the house. "We could've brought it for you, or just shipped it FedEx or whatever."

"No, see, I really did have to," Giles said. "Andrew hadn't been anywhere in almost two months, and he was beginning to drive me insane."

Dawn snickered. "Yeah, well, it was actually kind of good that you sent him. Angel and Spike showed up while he was there, looking for Buffy."

"You didn't want to see them, I take it?"

"Too weird," Buffy said. "I mean, I went to Europe to get away from all that, you know? I mean, they're immortal; you'd think they could understand patience. Plus, I met this cute guy while I was there; that was fun."

"Andrew actually did a really good job of getting rid of them," Dawn said. "If I didn't know he was totally incompetent as a bad guy, I might be worried about how well he lied to them."

Giles smiled. "So, what about this boy you met, Buffy? Might anything develop from that?"

"No, no, and more no," Buffy laughed. "I'm... I'm like a pie that's cooking, you know? I just, you know, got someone to stick a finger into that pie and see how it's coming along, taste it for me." She sighed happily. "He was good at that, you know. The tasting. He liked the taste."

"You know what's the worst thing about your subtle metaphors, Buffy?" Dawn said. "They completely lack subtlety. Just like your 'quiet' four-a.m. bathroom sex did."

Giles winced. "Congratulations. That bit of information just ensured that I will never again ask you about a boy."

:#:

Willow, Xander, and Robin were still at work when Buffy got to the house. Giles helped her and Dawn carry their suitcases up to their second-floor bedrooms (and then again, with the second set of suitcases).

She could hear the sounds of Slayers training down in her basement, although it was too faint for either Dawn or Giles to pick up. The sounds of home, she thought wryly. Although she hadn't expected anything of the sort, she was still mildly upset at the lack of Welcome Home banners or streamers or, well, something. Anything.

"I'm gonna go down and say hey to the girls," Buffy said.

"I'll come with you," Giles said.

Buffy looked at him, surprised. Now that they had more than one Slayer, the Watchers were no longer responsible for the physical training. They concentrated on other things, now -- finances, research, communications, and anything else they could to assist the Slayer in having as normal a life as possible while protecting the innocent and ignorant masses from the ravages of evil. Buffy knew Giles was beyond ecstatic that he no longer had to strap on pads and get pummeled by girls half his size.

Giles read her look correctly. "Well, I should check in on the training at least occasionally," he said with a grin.

Something was up; Buffy could tell. "Okay, then. Come on."

:#:

The training area looked exactly the same as before, Buffy noted. Six stairs down to a landing, then six more in the opposite direction down to the basement. Originally, it was set up as an apartment that could be rented out -- living room, kitchenette, bedroom, and full bathroom -- but after the decision to host the central training area in herhouse was made, Xander quickly set to work. The crack team of Slayer demolitions experts knocked out all the unneeded walls (Xander's plaintive cries of "That's structural!" always heeded), and they enjoyed it so much Buffy had considered adding a sledgehammer with a sharpened handle into the arsenal.

The living room was the biggest area, and they brought in several large, padded blue mats to make it the sparring area. The kitchenette's cabinets and appliances were junked, and Xander hung three heavy bags from the ceiling (not structural beams, he said, because he would rather re-hang the bags once a week than have part of the first floor collapse). The only walls left up were the bedroom walls, which closed off the weapons training area; Xander installed a weak latch, easily broken down in the case of emergency (even by a non-Slayer), that showed "occupied" when someone engaged it. He said he got the idea from portalets.

Faith stood a few feet from the foot of the stairs, keeping a close eye on Chao-Ahn and Helen, who sparred together under the older Slayer's gaze. She could hear other Slayers banging away on the heavy bags, and the door to the weapons training room was closed and latched. Buffy felt a brief flash of irritation at the lack of welcome-home festivities.

Faith noticed her first. Buffy had no idea if she made some sort of noise or if Faith merely sensed her, but she had only been there a few seconds before Faith turned around.

"B, you're back!" she said, a wide smile on her face. Her smile slipped after a moment, though. "Your trip okay?"

Buffy smiled at Faith and gave her a big hug. Sometimes, like just now when her smile slipped, Buffy felt like Faith held back with her and didn't feel comfortable because of her past. "Trip was great," she said. "I'm already ready to go back."

Faith looked sad for a moment, almost, but then it was gone, drowned in her customary brash volume. "Yo, everybody, B's back!" she shouted.

Helen and Chao-Ahn rushed over, glad to see her. Janet and Rona trotted over from the heavy bag area, fists taped up and shirts soaked with sweat. A few seconds later, the door to the weapons training room opened and Kennedy stuck her head through the opening. She pushed the door open all the way when she saw Buffy, and Vi and Kim followed her out; all three had the long, curved samurai swords (katanas?) Kennedy favored in their hands.

Helen and Chao-Ahn hugged her at the same time. "I missed you!" Helen said softly into her ear.

"I missed you, too," Buffy whispered back.

"Um, Faith?" Giles said. "Kennedy? Aren't we missing two certain someones?"

Buffy quickly surveyed the room. No one missing that she could see. "What?"

"We have two new Slayers!" Helen said quickly. Everyone glared at her -- even Chao-Ahn -- and she blushed. "Sorry!"

Buffy turned to Giles. "New Slayers? You never said anything!"

He took off his glasses and polished them. "Yes, well, it was to be a surprise." The glasses went back on and he looked at Faith again. "Where might our two charming girls be?"

Faith grinned. "Well, they were both a bit nervous about meeting the original, here," -- she indicated Buffy with a nod of her head -- "and decided it would be better to let her get situated back home before they were introduced."

Kennedy scoffed. "Oh, no, only _Audrey_ was nervous, don't you know?"

"Wow." Buffy raised her eyebrows, impressed. "That was off even my pretty capable sarcasm charts."

"Yes, well," Giles said slowly, "Katharine can be a bit, um... stand-offish at times."

"I like her," Helen said quietly. Buffy barely heard her.

"Lite Beer's fine, B," Faith said. "She's just trying hard to be cool, you know?"

"Uh-huh." Buffy shrugged. She'd ask Helen about it later, when they had time alone. The youngest Slayer was quiet and shy, but usually got a good handle on people, and Buffy trusted her judgment.

"Would you like to go meet them?" Giles asked.

:#:

Perhaps the most annoying thing about Audrey's coma, Katharine thought, was her sudden affinity for video games. Before the accident, she sucked. Badly. She almost never played, but when she did she inevitably shot herself or fell in the lava or drove the car directly into the wall (or the wrong direction completely). Now, though, she was good at video games. Better than good, even.

And it couldn't be Slayer coordination, because Katharine had that, too. And she was getting her ass kicked.

"It's nice to have an afternoon off from training, at least," she said after Audrey beat her again.

Audrey shrugged. "I like to train," she said. "It's hard, but fun."

"Yeah, well, you haven't seen a vampire attack yet." Katharine shuddered. "It's nasty. I tell you, half of me just wants to learn what I need to live and get out of here."

Audrey gaped at her, which surprised Katharine not at all. She could tell Audrey dug the whole Slayer idea: girls protecting the world from evil, clearly demarcated lines of black and white, always knowing that what you did was for the good of humanity. Katharine was skeptical that things were that way -- she wasn't even sure she believed in good and evil, really -- and she wondered how long it would be before Audrey's bubble of moral absolutism was popped. If she would be the one to do it.

The front door opened before Audrey said anything.

"Katharine? Audrey?" Giles called out. He walked through the foyer and into the living room. "Oh. You're on that... device."

Katharine doubted anyone could get as much scorn into the word "device" as could Rupert Giles.

A petite blonde followed him into the room. She had deeply-tanned skin and had the tired-but-perky look of someone who just got home from a cross-Atlantic flight. She was easily the smallest of the Slayers -- even Helen and Chao-Ahn were bigger, and girls like Kim and Janet towered over her -- but Katharine knew that, if the stories about her were true, she'd already died twice and foiled who knew how many different attempts to end the world.

Buffy and Giles walked across the living room to them. Katharine stood up; the couch was still between them, and a long, thin table approximately the same height as the couch back which rested directly behind it. Audrey, Katharine noticed, still gaped at her, and didn't seem to have noticed Buffy or Giles.

"Hey, guess you'r--" Katharine started.

"Get back!" Audrey screamed. She shoved Katharine to the side and vaulted over the couch and table. She grabbed a wooden cross from the table and thrust it in Buffy's face with one hand while the second hand went to push Giles away.

Buffy slid to her left, toward Giles, as Audrey lunged forward. She caught Audrey's right hand at the wrist before it got to Giles, twisted, stepped under the arm, and tripped Audrey as she moved forward to take the pressure off her shoulder. Audrey crashed face-first onto the ground, and Buffy put her left foot down at Audrey's shoulder joint as she applied more pressure to the captive arm.

Katharine barely moved forward before Buffy turned to her. "Move, and I break her arm," she said.

"Don't worry of me!" Audrey hissed. "Kill her!"

"Audrey, this is Buffy," Giles said. "She's not a danger." He looked up at Buffy. "Buffy, let her up, it's all right."

Buffy gave Giles a skeptical look and shook her head.

"That-- Buffy?" Audrey said. "You're not Buffy, you're dead. I... I saw you die."

Buffy looked over at Giles again, who nodded insistently. "I'm not dead," Buffy said. She let go of Audrey's arm and stepped back warily. Audrey rubbed her shoulder and stood. She eyed Buffy, ready to pounce, but stayed back.

"Are you sure it wasn't a dream, when you saw Buffy die?" Giles asked gently.

Audrey's stare changed, considering to confused. "I don't know," she said softly. "It's... hard to remember."

Audrey's stance changed, too, from aggressive to passive, and Buffy relaxed. "Look, don't worry about it," she said. "No harm, no foul. Or something."

Audrey's demeanor shifted again, this time to concern. "But you could die!" she insisted. "It could be one of those see-the-future dreams."

Katharine could tell Audrey's sudden shifts startled Buffy. "Maybe," Buffy said slowly. She shrugged. "Depends. Did you get a drowning in a pretty white dress death, or perhaps a graceful-yet-tragic swan dive from a tower death? 'Cause, honestly, only about thirty-three percent chance Buffy-death-vision is in the future."

The front door opened again, and Faith called out, "Yo, B, you here?"

Audrey's eyes widened, and she looked over at Katharine. "Oh, God... I'm sorry!"

Faith walked into the living room right as Audrey turned and ran off. She slammed into Faith, almost knocked her over, before she ran out the door.

"What was that?" Faith asked.

Buffy threw her hands out wide and shrugged. "Got me."

"I'm not certain," Giles said, "but I believe it's possible that as a result of injury sustained before the Slayer healing factor was invoked in her body, combined with the severe brain trauma she compacted, she could experience the Slayer dreams both more intensely and more vividly than intended, rendering her consciousness unable to separate them from reality."

"Oh, yeah, exactly what I was thinking," Faith said. "Thanks, G."

"You know what was the best thing about Italy?" Buffy said. "When people said something I didn't understand, it was because it was in another language."

"He said the coma she was in before she was a Slayer messed up her Slayer dreams," Katharine said, "and now she can't tell if some things were a dream or not."

Faith and Buffy turned to stare at her. Giles coughed and polished his glasses. "Yes, thank you, Katharine. I do believe that was the most condescending way possible to put that."

Katharine blushed, but she refused to apologize or back down in front of Faith -- or Buffy, for that matter. Originals be damned. "Yeah, hi, I'm Katharine, the bitchy one. Nice to meet you." She shrugged. "You met my sister, Audrey, the crazy one."

Faith snorted -- still feminine, somehow -- and turned to the front door again. "I'm gonna go talk to her."

"You sure?" Buffy asked.

Faith nodded, but didn't look at her. "Yeah. Maybe it's like how I was, coming out of my coma. It's weird." She glanced back at Buffy, but turned away quickly. "I'll talk to you later."

:#:

Faith found Audrey in the side yard, behind the bushes, squatted down with her back against the brick exterior with her head between her knees and rocking back and forth.

"So is this the meeting spot?" Faith asked.

Audrey didn't look up at all. "Go away."

She sounded miserable. "No can do," Faith said. She kept her voice light and friendly, as much as she could. "Sorry, but it's about time we called the first meeting of the Wicked-Hot Formerly-Comatose Slayer's Club to order."

Now Audrey looked up. "The what?"

Faith sat down beside her. She felt the dirt stick to her sweaty shorts, but ignored it. She smiled, as reassuringly as she knew how, and said, "Eight months, I was out. I was seventeen. Had my eighteenth birthday when I was in a coma."

Audrey blinked. "Me, too. Eight months, I mean. I woke up in July, almost a year ago, so I only had my seventeen birthday."

"See? You're a member. Now, I'm the original, so don't go jackin' my style too much, but I don't got a choice but to put you in the club."

Audrey blushed and looked away. "You really think so?"

"Yeah, of course. Eight-month coma, you're in the club."

"No, I mean... wicked hot."

Faith stared at her for a moment. "Are you hitting on me?"

"No! No!" Audrey shook her head franticly.

"Hey, it's cool. I don't mind. Kinda flattering, if you were."

"Oh. Sorry. But no." Audrey shrugged and looked at the ground between her feet. "It's just... I've been awake almost eleven months, and all of that's rehab, trying to get what I don't remember back -- which is much -- and I was shy in school, I think, not like Katharine, who always knows what to say. I think. I donâ�™t know, I mean, I just thought Buffy was a dead girl a minute ago. But..." She shrugged again.

"It's confusing," Faith said. "Trust me, I get it. I woke up, things were crazy, and after three years of sitting around with nothing to do but think, I'm still sorting it out."

"Things aren't as crazy as I am."

"Aw, now that's just crap. Look, it's a lot to take in for the girls who aren't coming into this with a chunk of their life missing. If you don't understand something, just ask. Ask one of the girls, ask one of the Watchers -- hell, ask me."

Audrey took a deep breath and finally looked up at her. "Okay. I will. Thanks."

Faith nodded and changed the subject. "So you want to be hot, huh?" Audrey blushed and shrugged. "You are eighteen, right?"

:#:

That night, Faith and Xander patrolled together.

The group split into pairs when they did cemetery patrols, in order to cover more ground in less time. Xander bought four flare guns, to use in case one pair got into a bad situation and needed immediate backup, but so far no one had needed them yet. The vampire population in Cleveland was either poorly organized or extremely well-organized, because they never found more than a couple together.

That night, Faith took Xander with her to be able to talk to him about Buffy, although she didn't say that to Janet or Rona. Xander saw right through her, though. "You chickened out," he said.

"No! Things came up. With the twins." Xander looked at her sideways and raised an eyebrow. "Okay, yeah, I chickened out. I used Aud's freak-out as an excuse."

Faith missed Xander's slight flinch.

"So you get on okay with her, huh?" Xander said.

"Audrey? Yeah, seemed to earlier."

"Interesting, considering that her sister still seems to hate you as much as she did that first night."

Faith laughed. "Yeah, Lite Beer's not too fond of me, huh?" She shrugged. "Maybe that's just part of being a Slayer, you know? I mean, there's only supposed to be one, and maybe when there's not, well, maybe they don't get along 'cause they're supposed to be alone. I mean, that's what my big problem with B was back in the day, you know?"

Xander pursed his lips and looked down; Faith recognized the look as his contemplative expression. "So you think we messed something up when we made all these Slayers?"

"What?"

"Well, you said Slayers are supposed to be alone, they don't get along when they're not," he said. "Now we have tons -- eleven here with us, who knows how many out in the world -- you think maybe that's gonna go bad?"

Faith thought about it while she walked. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe not. Maybe it's just me, you know, I didn't like B and Lite Beer don't like me. I'm just talking, Harris -- listen at your own peril."

Xander laughed. "I'll keep that in mind." They walked in silence for a bit longer. "You gotta tell her tomorrow, Faith, or I will."

Faith nodded. "Five-by-five, Watcher-man."

A dirt-covered vampire stepped out from behind a tree in front of them. "What's this, a lover's stroll late at night? Too bad it'll be your last," he snarled.

Faith and Xander rolled their eyes in tandem. Newbie vamps always wanted to sound diabolical.

"Rock, paper, scissors?" Faith asked.

The vampire tilted his head, confused. "Pardon?" The Slayer and her Watcher ignored him.

"Sure," Xander said, and they threw down to see who got to deliver the comeback quip before they dusted the vampire.

:#:

Faith pulled Buffy aside before the morning workout, asked to talk to her up in her room. Faith closed the door behind her, and they sat down -- Buffy on the bed, Faith on the chair in front of Buffy's vanity.

"What's up?" Buffy asked. Faith could tell she was nervous.

Faith took a deep breath, unsure of how to start. "Do you know who Connor Reilly is?" she asked.

Buffy shook her head. "Should I?"

Faith shrugged. "I haven't told anyone else, not really. Xander was there when I found out, I wouldn't have told him, I would've told you first even if I had to hold it in for a year, B, you gotta believe me."

"Faith, what did you do?"

Faith shook her head. "No, nothing. Nothing. But Xander, he hasn't told anyone, either. We both thought you should know first."

"Know what?"

"Angel and Spike died."

Buffy sat still, perfectly still. "No, I just -- they were just in Italy a few weeks ago, I just brushed them off in Italy a few weeks ago. They can't be dead."

"I'm sorry, Buffy."

"But..."

Faith stood. "I know. I'll go get Dawn."

Faith opened the door, and Buffy said, "Thank... I, I'm trying to be gracious and nice, Faith. You waited to tell me, and... but you knew first, they're gone and I -- and you --"

Faith nodded. "I know, Buffy. It's five-by-five. I'll get Dawn."

Faith closed the door, and heard Buffy's tears start. She ran downstairs to get Dawn.

-:-


	11. A WalkOn Part in the War

**Chapter Eleven**  
**_A Walk-On Part in the War_**

The Circle of the Black Thorn. Giles recognized the name, although he knew little about them. It was a secret society, after all.

A group of powerful underworld players. Dangerous and sophisticated. Now, apparently, dead. Just like Angel.

Giles poured another glass of scotch. The fourth, maybe fifth. Didn't matter. He still heard his words echoing through his head:

"Lie to them, Andrew."

:#:

Some things worked out well, at least. The crazed Slayer, Dana, was safe in a hospital with Council connections. Wolfram & Hart -- and the greater demonic community at large -- never learned how disorganized they were in Cleveland, how they couldn't find any of the new Slayers, how almost everything from the moment of Sunnydale's collapse had gone awry from what they'd planned.

He lied to Angel's team, and he lied to his team. Neither Xander nor Robin had any idea of Dana's existence. Only Andrew knew, and Giles had frightened him into silence with a simple threat: "If you tell, no one will believe you over me."

But now. Angel was dead, Spike was dead, and Wesley was dead. Fred, the girl he never met but refused to help, and the fallen god who inhabited her body, dead. Charles Gunn and the former host, Lorne. More names to add to the long list of those fallen due to his poor choices.

The Circle was gone. But was the price one worth paying? Giles wondered.

And as he wondered, he drank.

:#:

A knock at his door interrupted his night.

Katharine opened the door and slipped inside. She never opened doors completely; rather, she opened them only as wide as was necessary to squeeze inside, almost as if she was sneaking in, and then closed it behind her.

She looked at him for a moment. "Are you drunk?"

Giles picked up his glasses from his desk and slipped them on. "No. What can I do for you?"

Katharine raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to the side. The look reminded Giles of someone -- again, the girl always reminded him of someone -- but he couldn't place who.

"I..." he said.

"...am not drunk enough?" Katharine offered.

He nodded. "Quite."

"It's cool. I didn't know any of those people, but you know the song: whatever gets you through the night is all right." Giles gave her a tight grin, but said nothing. She pursed her lips and added, "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you."

"I talked to Buffy and Dawn some yesterday, after the thing with Aud," she said. Her words came out quickly, rushed together. "I wanted to thank you for everything you've done for my sister and me. I asked them what you missed most from home, what possession you lost and haven't gotten replaced yet and missed, and they--"

She opened the door again and reached into the hallway. She grabbed a black case and brought it into the room, rushed it over to Giles' desk where she laid it and opened the latches.

"They said you were a musician, lost your albums and your instruments..." Katharine trailed off as Giles opened the case and pulled out an Ibanez acoustic guitar. He rolled his chair back and slid forward to the edge of the seat, balanced the guitar on his thigh and strummed. A full, clear E-chord.

He looked up at Katharine. She said, "I tuned it for you this afternoon after I bought it. It's not custom or anything, I didn't have that much money, but it's a nice model. Makes a good sound, but it's not so showy that you're afraid to play it."

"It's wonderful." He strummed a few more chords, picked a few notes. "Do you play?"

"No," she said. "Dad did. Collects them."

"I see. This is wonderful, thank you, Katharine."

"Play something."

"Oh, good Lord, I haven't played in ages."

Giles picked a few notes, strummed a few chords, and began to play. _Come All Ye_, originally by Fairport Convention; the song was for a woman's voice, but with a few minor changes he made the song his.

_Come all ye rolling minstrels  
And together we will try  
To rouse the spirit of the earth  
And move the rolling sky_

He looked up at Katharine and saw confusion in her eyes. He had no idea what she expected him to play, but obviously this wasn't it. He stopped the song, placed the guitar back in the case and closed it. "Perhaps this should wait. It's late, and you have a big day tomorrow."

Katharine nodded. "Right." She moved back to the door and put her hand on the knob. "Training. Important stuff."

"Actually, I'm starting you and Audrey on a patrol rotation," Giles said. Katharine leaned back against the closed door. "You will have two nights on, one night off -- just like the others -- but you will switch from group to group, although your off days will be with the same Watcher, it couldn't be avoided."

"Who did we draw?"

Giles pulled a sheet of paper from underneath the guitar case. "Audrey will stay in on the nights Buffy, Helen, and Chao-Ahn stay in," he said. "You will be with Faith, Janet, and Rona."

Katharine nodded slowly. "So I get Harris, and Aud gets you."

"Yes. Each of you will patrol four times with each group. It will take eighteen days. We will use this time to determine which Watcher you are best suited for."

Giles stopped, pursed his lips. He reached out to the glass of Scotch, but paused and then removed his glasses. He looked down at the desk as he said, "If you wish to leave, these next two weeks are the time to go. I, for one, would certainly not find such a choice amiss. Many hard decisions come with this life. Decisions where, to do what you believe to be right, you are forced to lie to someone. Someone you stood beside, fought against an apocalypse with. And not even because you believed him evil; rather, the possibility is simply too great to tell the truth. You refuse to help one of his people, and she dies, or you..." He sighed and shook his head. "It is a hard life. Many would choose to avoid it. Most would, I dare say."

Katharine bit her bottom lip as she thought. "Audrey's an idealist, you know. Idealistic and a romantic, in the Victorian sense of the word. Always has been. She's in love with the idea of a calling to fight to save the world."

"And what of yourself?" Giles asked.

"Me?" Katharine stepped forward, away from the door, and slowly approached Giles' desk as she talked. "I'm a cynic and a realist. I don't believe anyone ever finds real peace, Rupert, just a false glimpse they expand into their life of illusion. I believe that you have to find joy where you can, when you can," -- she leaned over his desk and looked intently at him -- "and hold on to it and do the best you can with it."

She leaned over him and looked down at him. He realized her look now, just like her look earlier, was not one of confusion. He stood, and now he looked down at her. Her dark hair surrounded her face, and she looked up at him with dark eyes through dark lashes. Her lips parted slightly, barely, and he reached forward and she lifted up a bit and it hit him that _she reminded him of Jenny_.

"Oh, God!" He stumbled back into his chair and sat down, hard. Katharine jumped back, startled by the sudden movement.

"Rupert, are you okay?" she said.

"Yes, I'm fine," he snapped. He shook his head and tried to regain his equilibrium. "I'm sorry, I--" He took a deep breath. "I apologize. That was out of line, and it will not occur again."

Katharine looked at him for a second, then turned around and hurried to the door. She paused, though, her hand on the doorknob, and said, "It's okay, Rupert. But think about this: I'm going to care about you, no matter what. If we do or if we don't, I'm still going to want you. It doesn't change how we feel, if we act on it or don't."

Giles said nothing, and after a moment Katharine opened the door and left.

:#:

Robin always put on a pair of pajama pants and a sleeveless undershirt for bed. Faith called them "wife-beaters," but he hated that, regardless of their marital state or even the plausibility of him living through an attempt at beating her. It was just the principle of it; not every woman was a Slayer. Faith didn't care about all that. She just thought it was funny he insisted on wearing clothes to bed when he knew that she was going to take them off.

Which, of course, was the whole point of wearing them.

He also tended to go to sleep before she did. This often resulted in many an exciting way to wake up -- which, again, was a major reason to go to sleep first. Not the only reason, though; he just couldn't stay awake as late as Faith. Slayer energy and nocturnal instincts added to Faith's night-owl personality left her with about four hours of sleep a night, which was plenty for her but not nearly enough for him.

This night, though, waking up wasn't nearly as fun. Faith came in and flopped down onto her side of the bed melodramatically, covered her face with her hands, and started banging the back of her head into her pillow.

Robin watched her for a moment. "I think you've slayed the pillow."

Faith stopped banging her head, removed her hands, and glared at him. "Do I look like a patient person to you?"

Robin considered that for a moment. "Can I take the Fifth Amendment on that?"

Faith tried hard not to, but she couldn't stop a smile.

"What's bothering you?" Robin asked.

Faith groaned. "Audrey," she said. "God. I told the girl I'd help her out, she could ask questions, right? Well, girl won't shut up." Faith raised her voice to a high squeek -- or at least as close as her throaty voice could come. "'Faith, how did the spell work again?' 'Faith, how did you become a Slayer?' ''Faith, how did the spell work again?' 'Faith, blah blah blah!'"

Robin chuckled. "She repeats herself?"

"All the time, yo. It's driving me crazy."

"It must be hard for her," he said. "I mean, her memory is all messed up, who knows what sticks and what doesn't. I can't even begin to imagine how confusing it must be to live like that.

Faith sighed. "It's crazy. Girl's a natural with the Slay, you've seen that. She busts out moves I've never heard of before. But she just can't hold on to the simplest answers."

"You're all she has to hold on to, Faith; you're the only person who's told her it's okay to be confused."

"I know, but I ain't no saint, you know? I'm the wrong person for this."

"I disagree. You're the perfect person for this. You've been lost, and you've found your way back." Faith looked at him, and he smiled. "You might not see it, Faith, but the past year we've spent together, I have. You're more than you think, more than you know. And if you refuse to see it, well, I'll make sure you do."

Faith blushed and looked away. Robin had mellowed out a lot since the stab wound that almost killed him; she had no idea how to handle someone as supportive as he turned out to be for her. So far, she hadn't screwed things up, which amazed her. They fought, and fairly often, but just as often he had her back and complimented her far more than she thought she deserved.

"The important thing is that she's a Slayer," Robin continued. "She's only alive because of that, and she's only that because of us, because of what we did. We're honor-bound to help her."

Faith laughed. "God, you sound like some knightly sap, all 'honor-bound' and stuff."

Robin laughed, too. "You mean I'm nightly sapped by you, I think."

Faith groaned even as she laughed. "Oh, no, not bad puns, yo."

She rolled over on top of him and tickled him, just at the bottom of his ribs. Robin squirmed and tried to get her off of him, but (predictably) she was too strong for him.

Faith stopped when Robin came close to hyperventilating.

She sat on top of him, straddling his stomach and holding his wrists against the bed, one on each side. Her hair fell all across her face, and some of the ends hit his chest and face as she leaned forward to hold his wrists. They both gasped for air.

"Still wanna be dropping puns?" Faith teased.

Robin shook his head. "I adore you."

Faith flinched, but she kept her smile. She let go of his wrists, leaned back, and said, "You better not be about to use the l-word."

"No, no. Not at all. I'm just basking in hotness and complimenting the sun."

Faith's smile widened, and she leaned forward onto him. "Okay, now you are so getting sapped tonight, Mr. Wood."

:#:

Audrey patrolled the east side of the cemetery with Faith and Xander. Janet and Rona patrolled together on the west side. They kept an eye on one another through the trees and gravestones and crypts in between.

"The newspaper had a little blurb about disturbances here at the cemetery," Xander explained to her as the patrolled. "Graves disturbed, 'suspicious characters' walking around at night, that sort of thing. So, read between the lines: vampires."

Audrey really liked Xander. He took the time to explain things to her, but not in a condescending way; rather, he seemed to know when something came up which might confuse her and then simply explained. He never singled her out or made her feel slow or stupid or forgetful. He always seemed vaguely guilty when he explained things to her, even though he was as kind and understanding as she could possibly imagine someone being.

"Most people, if they see a vamp, they ain't gonna believe that's what they saw," Faith said. "They're gonna... what do you call it?"

"Rationalize," Xander said.

"Yeah, rationalize," Faith said. "Thanks. They're gonna rationalize it, like, 'No, that couldn't be a vampire, vampires don't exist!' type thing, you know?"

Audrey nodded. "Yeah."

"So if we see something in the paper that seems off, we check it out," Xander said.

Audrey smiled. "Makes sense." She got caught up staring at Xander's face -- on his blind side, so he didn't notice -- until Faith noticed and smirked her way. Audrey blushed and looked away.

She knew her sister liked Giles. It made sense. Katharine had a weakness for older guys, and a weakness for really intelligent guys, and a weakness for guys with accents, and a weakness for musicians. Audrey was just impressed her sister actually managed to complete sentences when Giles was around.

She didn't have any memories of boyfriends before her accident, although Katharine told her that she went on a date with a boy the Friday beforehand. He never came to the hospital to see her, though.

Now, she thought Xander was about as perfect as a boy could get. He was kind, and generous, and brave, and really sweet to her all the time, and he already knew about vampires and Slayers and her brain damage and so she didn't have to hide anything from him. But he never seemed interested in her, at least not outside of a professional interest he shared with all the other Slayers, and there was a vague sadness around him she knew nothing about -- was that a girl? He always flinched whenever someone called her "Aud," and always used her full name, never the nickname. She was too embarrassed to ask anyone else. Surely he wouldn't want anything to do with some brain-damaged Slayer. Who would?

:#:

They met up with Janet and Rona on the north side of the cemetery.

"We got nothing," Rona said.

"No newbs, no disturbed ground, not a thing," Janet added.

"Same here," Xander said.

"Are you sure this is the right cemetery?" Audrey asked.

"Yeah, we called them up earlier," Faith said. "I pretended to be someone who had a family plot here, ranted some. This is definitely the place in the article."

They all looked around for a moment, thinking, trying to figure out what happened.

"Where's the security?" Xander asked quietly.

Faith swore. "They just had an article in the paper about this place and how things were messed up here," she said. "And they didn't hire security or something?"

"Let's get out of here," Xander said. "Quick."

He took three steps before a rock flew out of the shadows and struck his forehead right at the hairline.

Xander dropped to his knees. Audrey started to move to him, but then vampires swarmed around them from every direction, and her reflexes took over.

-:-


	12. All I Have To Give

**Chapter Twelve**  
**_All I Have To Give_**

The vampires were on them before Audrey took two steps toward Xander.

Instincts took over. She drew stakes from her belt, one for each hand. A vampire came up behind her, to her left; she elbowed him in the face. As he staggered back, she fully extended her arm in one continuous motion from the elbow, and the stake found it's mark in the vampire's heart. She spun to her right, where another vampire was, and flicked the stake in her right hand at his heart. He caught the stake just in front of his heart, like she knew he would, and grinned at her, gloating, as she knew he would. A quick shuffle-step, left foot over right, and she delivered a side kick which completely buried the stake in the vampire's chest -- and left her without a stake.

She turned back to the first vampire, who was about to turn to dust, and dove for her stake. She pulled it from his chest just as he started to dissolve, and burst through the cloud of dust, stake in hand.

:#:

Cole and Donner stood back in the shadows and watched the other vampires attack.

"Nice toss with the rock," Cole commented as Xander fell to his knees. "Clipped the top of his head, just like you said you would."

Donner flexed his throwing arm and shrugged modestly. "Well, I used to play baseball," he said. "Had a pretty mean curveball, but I threw my arm out. Of course, that's not really much of a concern any more."

"Of course."

They watched the fight in silence for a few moments.

"That trick with the diving through the dust, that was pretty neat," Cole commented.

"Girl has great moves," Donner agreed. "Will we see more of her soon?"

"It's a possibility."

:#:

Faith stayed by Xander as chaos broke out around them.

He was on his knees on the ground, his hands up on his head and his eyes down. Faith drew her knife in her right hand and held a stake in her left. Janet, Rona, and Audrey spread out in a triangle around her and Xander as the vampires attacked. They looked to be holding their own pretty well.

"Harris, you okay?" she said.

Xander took his hands from his head. They were covered in blood. More blood trickled down his forehead and near his eyes. "Yeah, fine," he said. "Bleeding like a stuck pig, whatever that means, but it doesn't hurt too bad." He looked up and swore. "How many of them are there?"

"Several less than a second ago," Faith said. "Probably twelve or so."

"We gotta get away from here."

Xander scanned the area around them. They were pretty deep in the cemetery, nowhere near the Silverado Xander drove them there in. Something with the ambush seemed strange -- other than still being alive despite odds originally greater than three-to-one -- and his instincts screamed at him.

He watched the fight for a moment, and it quickly hit him: the attack strategy was terrible. Even without Soldier Boy instincts, without a full year's worth of Watcher Tactics Training, he could see the only reason the vampires weren't all dust was the overwhelming numbers. They never worked together against an opponent, never attacked in concert. In fact, they merely looked like a bunch of newly-raised vampires who had never seen one another before.

The vampires near Audrey hung back from her a bit, and Xander decided that was the best direction to head in. Janet was to his left and could see when they broke that way, but Rona was directly behind him and needed to be told.

"Rona!" he yelled, and came up behind her. He touched her lower back as she swung her knife at a group of vamps in front of her and said, "Be ready to run on my signal, Audrey way."

"Gotcha, Watcher-man," Rona said.

"Head out on my signal," Xander told Faith. "Grab Audrey and Janet, I'll hold the rear for a second."

Faith suggested an anatomical impossibility. "I'm not leaving you behind!" she hissed.

Xander touched her lower back. "Trust me. Go!"

Xander pushed Faith toward Audrey. Janet and Rona broke off and ran. The three vampires in front of Audrey stopped and stared, helpless as four angry Slayers bore down on them.

Xander raised the two flare guns he pulled off Rona and Faith and fired at the two knots of advancing vampires. The flare guns weren't the most accurate of weapons, but his aim from fifteen feet was pretty good. Red flares each slammed into a vampire group, setting two on fire. One of the two ran into a third as it flailed in agony, and the third also ignited. Xander dropped the two expended guns to the ground and sprinted after his Slayers.

:#:

"Wow," Cole commented dryly. "That sure was inventive."

Donner turned and looked at him. "You haven't shut up about that stupid kid for days. Are you sure you aren't getting a crush on him?"

"No, not really." Cole grinned. "They're both just so interesting. Quite a dilemma -- who to take, who to torment." He turned and started to walk up a hill toward a crypt they set up earlier. Donner trotted off to a different vantage point. Between the two of them, they would be able to see almost the entire cemetery.

The remaining vampires they raised over the past few days chased the Slayers and the Watcher.

:#:

After Xander's trick with the flare guns, the vampires stayed back far enough to avoid any more shots. Faith looked over her shoulder every couple seconds as she ran, and the vampires fell farther and farther back. She began to think they might lose them, but then realized there was no need for the vampires to keep them in sight -- Xander's head was bleeding enough that they could smell him no matter how far he went.

They ran by a crypt with columns in the front and an overhang. Faith directed everyone into the alcove.

"Are you crazy?" Janet said. "We gotta keep moving, we've almost lost them!"

"We're not gonna lose them," Xander said. He walked between the columns and under the overhang. "They can smell me from a mile away by now." He leaned back against the door and leaned his head back as he panted. "And that's assuming they're not just leading us to another ambush at the entrance."

Faith looked at Xander, worried. She knew head wounds bled a lot, but his face was practically a mask of red, and his hair looked red, too. She didn't have anything with her to stop the bleeding, either -- all she wore was one of Robin's wife-beaters and leather pants. She looked around at the other Slayers; none of them had anything she could use, either. Rona had a hoodie tied around her waist, but that was too thick.

Audrey gently wiped blood from Xander's face, away from his eyes, with one hand while she pressed on the wound with the other. "Pressure on wound, make it stop bleeding," Faith heard her say to herself.

"So what are we gonna do?" Janet said. "Call Kennedy for reinforcements?"

Faith whipped her shirt off over her head, leaving her in just a black bra and leather pants.

"That's definitely not the reaction I expected," Janet said.

"What is this, your secret exhibitionist-fu technique?" Rona said. "Attack of the killer Wonder Bra?"

"Hey! These girls are this perky all on their own," Faith said.

Confused, Xander opened his eyes. He stared for a second. "Best head-wound ever."

Faith drew her knife and cut a long strip from her shirt. "Chill out, Harris. You've already seen 'em, and they've got their own." She cut several shorter strips from the shirt, and moved over to him.

Audrey stepped back out of the way. Softly, she said, "He's seem them?"

Faith glanced at Audrey's wide eyes and faked a grin. "Yeah, see, I'm allergic to tequila. It makes my clothes fall off."

Xander snickered. "I think that was oxygen you were on." He hissed. "Ow! Don't press so hard."

Faith smirked. "Sorry. Didn't realize I was. Slayer strength, you know. Hard to keep track of." She tied the long strip tight around his head and stepped back. "That oughta hold. Rona, you let me wear your hoodie?"

Rona tossed it over her shoulder; she and Janet faced outwards, watching for vamps. "Thank God. Put something on, girl."

"Okay, now that Faith's clothed again, what's our plan?" Janet said.

"We split up," Xander said. "The four of you get back to the house, I'll draw the vamps away from you -- they'll smell my blood and follow me."

Rona spun around, furious. "No way! That ain't gonna happen!"

"We are not leaving you!" Janet said.

"Yes, you are," Xander said. His voice was calm and even. "First off, I'm your Watcher. Second, we don't know how many of those vamps are out there, but it's probably more than we can handle, especially on an ambush site they picked. We have to get out of here. I can't run with you, they'd smell me from a mile away."

Audrey, Rona, and Janet glared at Xander. Faith just grinned. "Don't worry, ladies. I'm going with him."

Xander's eyes narrowed. "Like hell you are."

"You're my Watcher, Harris, but I'm Senior Slayer here," Faith said. She stared at his one good eye; his gaze was intense, hard to hold, but she knew she was right, and could win this challenge of wills. Would win. "According to the Council guidelines you helped write, in a state of emergency or a battle situation there is a clear demarcation of rank and chain of command -- so right now, I out-rank you."

Xander glared at her for a moment before he yanked the truck keys out of his pocket and tossed them at Janet. "Fine. Wait for us to draw them away, then make a break for the truck. Go straight back to the house, we'll hole up somewhere and call you once the sun's up."

Xander stalked out of the crypt. Faith stayed behind for a moment. She looked at Janet and Rona and said, "Him, then me." They nodded. "Her, then you," she added, and they nodded again.

She hurried outside and found Xander waiting. "Me, then you what?" he said.

It was a code the Slayers had worked out, unknown to anyone else, one of the few things Janet and Kim ever agreed on. In a completely hopeless situation, one where vampires were sure to overwhelm them, they would kill their Watcher -- or whatever non-Slayer they might be with -- and then themselves.

There was no way she would tell Xander that, though. So she ignored the question. "So how we gonna get all these vamps to follow us? You don't taste that good, do you, Harris?"

Xander grunted. "Little trick I read in a book. Confusion and chaos. Or at least as close as we can get to the latter."

:#:

Cole's cell phone vibrated. He flipped it open and answered, "Yes?"

"Harris and Faith are on the move," Donner said. "I think they're trying to draw off the fodder so the other Slayers can get away."

"Okay. So we--"

"No, wait, I'm sure of it now." Donner sounded amused.

"Really?"

"Quite." Definitely amused. "Harris just lit a tree on fire with a flare gun, and Faith mooned me. I don't think she's wearing underwear."

"Huh."

"Can we follow them? They're much more interesting than the girl."

Cole smiled. "Sure. Maybe they'll take care of the idiots we raised for this experiment. Let the other three go."

:#:

Xander and Faith sprinted ahead of three vampires by about fifteen meters. The rest of the vampires -- another seven in all -- were several hundred meters back.

Xander glanced over at Faith, whose pants were still unbuttoned. He'd never worn leather pants (he lacked the requisite evil or sex appeal), but even still, experience with his car's seats told him that sweaty legs would stick to the material. He would've thought Faith, with her leather-pants experience, would know that; he guessed she forgot. By the time she got her pants up over her rear, the vamps were charging and they ran.

The cemetery gave way to a residential neighborhood. Why people wanted to live near a graveyard, he had no idea, but the houses were fairly nice and only separated from the graveyard by a wooden six-foot privacy fence -- easily jumped by Slayer, Watcher, and vampire alike.

Xander and Faith cut through the backyard of a house and out onto a lighted residential road. Cars lined the driveways and some were parked on the street, but other than Xander and Faith the whole area seemed devoid of life. Xander could hear the vampires gaining behind them, only a few meters back now; he knew Faith could out-run them, she had the Slayer-speed, but she stayed even with him, and the vampires gained on them both.

"I'm not -- gonna last -- much longer!" Xander gasped. He could feel his legs start to burn. Faith nodded.

She glanced behind her, then dropped down to her knees and skidded to a stop on the sidewalk. The cement tore through her pants and the skin on her knees as she drew two stakes and slammed them back up over her head. The vampires couldn't stop in time, and two of them ran right into her; the stakes found their mark and they turned to dust. The third jumped to the side to avoid its mates, its eyes on Faith, and Xander caught it off balance with a vicious kick to the knee. The vamp cried out and bent over, and he drove his stake into its back.

Faith winced as she stood, but shook off his help. "I'll heal," she said. "We gotta find a place to hide."

"I've got an idea," Xander said.

:#:

Xander found a house he was looking for a few minutes later.

"Owners are out of town, on vacation or something," he said as he and Faith snuck around back. "So the invite rule still holds, but there's no one around to make the invite. Perfect safe haven from vamps, if you can avoid people."

"Yeah, but how do we get in?"

"We break in."

:#:

"We can't touch anything with our hands," Xander said. He and Faith sat on the kitchen floor in the house, her back against the cabinets and Xander across from her. "I'll wipe down the door before we leave in the morning. We can't leave fingerprints or anything."

"Yeah, especially not me," Faith said.

"You and me have the same rap sheet now, Faith," Xander said. "Remember? The new and improved Faith Covington, her record gone."

Faith grinned. "Actually, just the new." She could barely make out Xander's puzzled look in the dark. They couldn't risk being found, so the lights had to stay off. "Covington's not my real name."

"It's not?"

"Nah. Got Willow and Angel to get it changed when we hit up LA together." That was a nice and awkward couple of days. "Figured that even with a cleared record, having a different name might help out. Fresh start kinda thing."

"Huh. So what was your last name? You were always just 'Faith,' no other name needed."

"What, like Dillinger, Capone, and Faith?" she said.

He grinned. "Sure, something like that."

Her smile faded, and she shrugged. "Guess the company fits, huh?"

"Faith, no. Don't do that. It's not true."

"Nah, it's cool. It is true. I mean, I'm not that girl anymore, figuratively and legally..." She trailed off for a second. "Angel called it evil done for a good purpose, getting my charges dropped and a new identity."

"That's stupid," Xander said. "It was against the law, sure, but it wasn't evil. If you're being evil every time you break the law, well, by speeding tickets alone we're all going to Hell."

Faith shrugged, unconvinced. They sat in silence for a little bit, until Xander remembered the pen-sized flashlight he had in his pocket.

"Here, let me look at your knees," he said, and slid across the floor to sit beside her. He turned the light on and shined it on her. "That doesn't look too comfortable."

"Nah, not really," Faith said. "But I'll be fine. Besides, you gotta admit, that was a wicked cool way to stake some vamps."

Xander chuckled. "I guess so. Still, you should get that cleaned up when we get back to the house."

"Xander, I haven't had a cold in eight years. It's not gonna get infected." At his look, she rolled her eyes. "Fine. Will do, Watcher-man."

Xander nodded. He slid across the floor and leaned against the cabinets beside Faith, his right shoulder inches from her left. After a few minutes of silence, he said, "My thing with the flare guns was cooler."

Faith leaned to the left and shoved him with her shoulder. "It so was not."

Xander, laughing, shoved her back. "You wish."

Faith laughed and shoved him back, hard, and he barely caught himself before he fell over. She leaned against him and slapped at him with both hands. Xander laughed and tried to defend himself as her hands darted all over, too fast for him to follow, hitting her hair and his body and his arms about equally. Her slaps were light, barely making contact, and whenever she hit his ribs they turned into a tickle and he lurched. When she realized she was tickling him, her smile widened and a wicked gleam entered her eyes -- and she turned exclusively to tickling him.

Even as he could barely breathe, Xander thought he'd never seen her happier, more carefree. Was this how she would've been as a child, before Slaying and absent parents and the circumstances of life taught her to push people away? He couldn't think of a time when Faith was so innocently happy -- well, innocent in the sense of the moment, as they were currently guilty of breaking and entering. For a good cause, though. They're breaking the law to help fight evil.

Finally, Xander squirmed, rolled around, laughed, and hyperventilated enough to satisfy Faith. He curled up on his left side, still laughing, and she leaned over him on his right shoulder. He felt her hair on his face and neck, tickling and itching the eyelashes of both his eyes. He felt her body shake as she laughed.

He looked up -- to the side -- at her. "I'm glad you enjoyed that so much."

"Me, too." Her face was close, just inches away. She looked him in the eye, not a challenging gaze but just a calm, happy look. Xander has seen her angry, scared, he's seen her break down from grief, but he realized he's never seen this look from her.

Her weight pulled off him some. He rolled a bit, more onto his back, and felt his shoulder push past her breasts before she leaned back into him more. Her face was close now, red lips and pale skin framed by black curls. Here eyes still locked onto his. Their lips almost met, her hips and stomach pressed into his right hip as his torso twisted to meet hers. Her lips stayed apart from his, close enough that he felt the warmth of her breath against his lips, millimeters apart, and her right hand came up and her thumb traced the arc just beneath his bottom lip, his right to left, from one corner of his mouth to another. He felt the touch, but the only thing he saw was her eyes. Her thumb slid lower, from the corner of his mouth to his chin, and her fingertips came to rest along his jaw and neck--

--and something flashed in her eyes and she jumped back away from him, nearly hysterical, "OhGodOhGod I'm sorry--"

Xander hurried forward and grabbed her shoulders. "Faith, calm down, it's okay. It's okay. Calm down."

She looked at him with wide eyes that darted all over his face, but her breathing slowed. "God, I'm so sorry, my hand," she said. She held up her right hand, the one she touched him with. "I shouldn't-- I'm sorry, God, Xander--"

"Faith, it's okay. I'm fine." He smiled, to reassure her that he was fine. "You never came near my eye. It's okay."

Faith pulled back and stared at him. "Your eye?" she said softly. "What?"

:#:

It took her a moment to place Xander's reaction. His eye? Why would his eye bother him? Oh.

All she could think about was how he felt under her, beside her, how he made her so comfortable that she could giggle and laugh like a girl instead of a killer or a Slayer, just a regular girl having fun with a regular boy. And then she touched his neck. It all came back to her then, the anger and distress and distrust and how she tried to choke it all away, all out of the body of a boy she never saw as anything other than Buffy's. And here she was, touching him again, not Buffy's but his own, enjoying him when she had no right to.

And he thought it was about Caleb?

"No, obviously not the eye," Xander said. "What is... God. It's that night, isn't it? Back in '99."

Faith looked away from him and nodded. She remembered looking him in the eyes then, the night they were together, and the feelings that rose up in her. She stared him in the eyes when her hands were around his neck, daring those feelings to come back so she could choke them down, too. How could she look him in the eyes now?

"It didn't bother me," Xander said after a minute.

"You sure seemed bothered then," she said. "You--"

"I meant now. Tonight."

"That's..." She trailed off.

"I can't say I've really thought much about it in years."

She looked up sharply, disbelieving, but quickly looked away again. His eyes were too much. "I tried to kill you," she whispered.

"Do you want me to forgive you?" He shrugged. "You tried to kill me, Faith. But so has Willow, so has Angel, so has Spike. So have more demons and what-all-else than I care to count." He paused, took a deep breath. "Did you know I left Anya at the altar? I didn't break off the wedding. I just left, gone, no note or goodbye or nothing. I let her pair off with Andrew in the battle with the First, and she died. I lied to Buffy to make sure she'd kill Angel. I summoned a demon which danced people to death. Are any of those things forgivable? Hell, should they be? And who the hell am I to be granting someone forgiveness with all I've done, anyway?"

Xander reached out and took her hands. "I trust you, Faith. Now." He lifted her hands and put them on his neck, wrapped her fingers around it. "That's all I have to give."

Slowly, Faith raised her eyes to his. He looked at her calmly, not scared or worried. They stared at each other that way for a while, not smiling or crying, just looking at one another, trusting one another.

And then she lifted her hands from his neck to his jawline, pulled him close, and kissed him.

-:-


	13. Bright Lights of Morning After

**Chapter Thirteen**  
_**Bright Lights of Morning After**_

Xander called everyone from a payphone outside a diner the next morning. Faith sat on a bench near him, Rona's borrowed hoodie wrapped around her despite weather far too warm for it. Still, sweat was far better than an arrest for indecent exposure.

Xander leaned against the phone as he made the call. They removed the remains of her shirt that morning before they left the house. Xander took two plastic bags and some towels; he used the towels to wipe down the house for fingerprints and any other evidence they might have left behind, and wrapped the towels and the blood-soaked shirt in the plastic bags. Faith had the bags by her feet -- they would keep the evidence with them until they got to their house, where Willow would find some science-y or magic-y way to get rid of it.

Xander was on the edge of exhaustion, barely vertical; his shoulder braced against the phone was all that kept him upright. With his head wound, Faith had been afraid to let him fall asleep last night, in case he had a concussion. He didn't argue much, a sure sign that he was worse off than he was willing to admit.

Xander hung up the phone and walked over to sit by her on the bench.

"They should be here in about twenty minutes," he said. He chuckled slightly. "Rona tried to play it cool, like she wasn't worried. She said you better have kept her hoodie in one piece."

Faith smiled, but said nothing. She thought about the previous night. About how she kissed Xander, and how he then rolled over on top of her. About how sometimes, when she initiated something or reacted to his touch, he would jerk slightly, as though she wasn't quite what he expected. About how he lifted her arms over her head and held her hands, most of his body weight on her chest, but braced his body on his elbows to take just enough weight off her so she could breathe and enjoy the pressure. About how he paid attention to parts of her body she never thought guys knew about, like her collarbone, the underside of her breasts, and the inside of her elbows.

About how, for the first time in her life, she looked a man in the eyes while he was inside her.

How could she talk to him after that? What was there to say? She had no idea. She was content to sit there on the bench and wait for the others to come, and Xander seemed equally content. She wondered what he thought about. Was he ashamed? Did he regret it? Did he feel guilty? Was she nothing more than a warm body, a port in a storm? Was he wondering what she thought about right now?

They sat together in awkward silence for twenty minutes.

:#:

Robin barely parked the car before he jumped out. Faith could tell he was worried; he looked like he hadn't slept at all the night before. She stood up as he walked over calmly. His gait was tight, controlled, and she could tell he wanted to run over to her. She was glad he didn't.

Willow followed him closely, her eyes only on Xander. Neither wanted to make a scene in front of the diner, but the relief, worry, and concern on their faces were easy to see.

Robin hugged her tightly, his arms around her waist. "I... I'm glad you're okay," he said. She knew what he was about to say: that he was worried about her, scared she wouldn't make it back. He wouldn't say anything like that, though. They both knew what she did, how dangerous it was.

Faith looked back at Xander. He still sat on the bench, an annoyed look on his face as Willow examined the gash on his head. The cut was actually above his hairline, not on his forehead as Faith had originally thought. She wasn't sure if he would need stitches or not, this long after the cut was first opened.

Robin let go of her and pulled back. His hands slid up her sides and he gripped her face, much like she held Xander the night before. She looked up at him, focused on his mouth rather than his eyes as he told her that he always believed she'd make it out okay, that she was tough and a survivor.

And that was the difference between Robin and Xander, she realized. Robin believed in Faith completely, fully, and almost blindly, but Xander _knew_ her. He knew where she came from, he knew what life was for her before she became a Slayer, and he knew her at her very worst. He experienced her worst. When Robin said something about Faith, he expressed his belief in her potential and what she could be. When Xander did the same, it isn't trust or faith, but rather a certainty of who she is and what she can do.

To Robin, Faith is religion; to Xander, she's truth, a tangible reality.

It made her feel guilty, these thoughts and feelings and what she did the night before. Robin was a wonderful boyfriend who treated her better than she ever imagined possible back in Stockton. He was intelligent and kind and had no problem being the boyfriend of a Slayer. And now she had cheated on him, with her Watcher. His colleague.

Faith looked back at Xander. He and Willow laughed at something together, his eyes on the ground, her eyes on him tenderly and exasperated.

Faith turned back to Robin and kissed him.

:#:

Willow wanted to take Xander to the emergency room for stitches. He claimed it was pointless, as the cut had already closed. She claimed that just washing his hair would be enough to open it back up again. He claimed it would draw questions, why he waited ten hours to bring a head wound in for stitching.

In the end, they compromised: Helen gave him four stitches. All the Slayers knew basic first aid, and a few researched other medical techniques which could be useful in the field. Helen was by far the most accomplished; her hands were as steady as a surgeon's, and she was almost as comfortable sewing up a person as staking a vampire.

He took a shower after, one he desperately needed. His hair had gotten long over the year since Sunnydale, since the life where he cared how he looked to the opposite sex, and now reached down almost to his mouth in shaggy, uneven waves. Rona and Janet threatened to hold him down and put it in cornrows every so often.

Still -- long hair on a guy was always a look he liked, ever since he saw Brandon Lee as _The Crow_ a few years before Buffy moved into town. The forward head tilt, long hair falling into his eyes, sneer on his lips, it was always how he pictured a truly dangerous individual. Years of experience with Slayers, almost all of whom wore their hair long and pulled off the look perfectly, reinforced that image.

His long hair held a lot of blood, though.

It washed down over his body and scars, red over light pink and puckered white. The domestic weight he gained after high school was gone, replaced by the body he had back when he regularly ran from and fought with monsters and bullies. The scars stayed, though; the part of his body he couldn't revert to former dimensions. Horizontal scars across his stomach from several different demon attacks, a jagged scar on his elbow from the compound fracture at the end of his junior year, and scars on his knuckles from fist fights with vampires. No scars for his eye; no skin touched there, just eyeball.

He had a simple rubric for the severity of his injuries: who had to clean him up afterward. If he could shower on his own, he was fine.

:#:

Xander returned to his bedroom to find Buffy on the bed, waiting for him.

The angry look on her face stopped any lewd jokes he thought to make.

"Uh, hey, Buff," he said.

She just glared at him silently.

He glanced down at the towel wrapped around his waist. He had no desire to change in front of Buffy, but she was obviously pissed off about something and had no intention of leaving. He didn't want to argue in just a towel, either.

Xander grabbed boxers and a pair of pants and opened his closet door to block Buffy's view of him while he changed. He put the clothes on and came out into his room shirtless; there was only so much leeway she could expect, sitting in his room right after a shower.

"So, what's up?" he said.

Her voice was flat and clipped. "Faith told me about what you did last night."

Xander froze.

"Care to tell me what the hell you were thinking?"

God. He couldn't believe Faith had mentioned it, and to Buffy of all people. He didn't know what he wanted to happen between them, or how to handle what happened, but from the way she greeted Robin that morning, Xander thought Faith wanted to keep it a secret. "I--" he stammered. How could he answer a question he didn't know the answer to? He shrugged and looked down at the floor.

"Of all the-- I can't even believe you would do something so stupid!" Buffy said. "Thank God Faith stopped you!"

Xander jerked his head up to her. "Faith what?" he said quietly.

"Stopped your stupid, suicidal little plan to draw off the vampires and get yourself killed!" Buffy stood up as she continued to rant. "What the hell could make you even think that sending your Slayers away was a good idea? Are you crazy? Are you just trying to get yourself killed?"

"It's my job!" Xander snapped. He walked right up into Buffy's face and loomed over her; she, of course, didn't flinch. "Take a look, Buffy -- I'm not just a Scooby anymore! God, you have never seen me, not from the first day we met, you know that? None of you ever have. Well, look at me now, Buffy. Stop seeing that scared, stupid teenager and wake up. I'm a Watcher. I've got responsibilities now, people who depend on me, and sometimes that means a tough decision has to be made--"

"If you think getting killed is going to do the slightest bit of good for anyone," Buffy cut him off sadly, "then you don't know the first thing about being a Watcher or what you mean to your Slayers."

Xander stared at Buffy as his anger seeped away. He hadn't expected this; he was so used to being the Zeppo in her eyes, he didn't know how to respond when she showed he no longer was.

"Giles tried to do the same thing with me," Buffy said, her voice softer and warmer, "and that's about the highest compliment I can pay you. About a year after he became my Watcher, too, so you're right on schedule." Xander stepped back and sat down on the bed. Buffy grinned slyly. "That was the night I faced the Master. You remember that night, yeah?"

Xander grinned, too, in spite of himself. "Yeah. You knocked him out cold in the library, right in front of Miss Calendar. She told us what you said, about how Giles was the one who showed you the good parts to your destiny, taught you what it really meant to be the Slayer, and you couldn't disappoint him by letting him face it for you once that destiny came to an end."

Buffy stared at him. _Think of something cool, tell him I said it_, her words echoed in her head. Miss Calendar evidently took her words to heart. Still, seven years after Angelus, Buffy's feelings toward Giles's dead love were mixed at best.

Buffy shook her head and concentrated on what she came to Xander to do. "And you remember later that night?" Buffy asked. "You were a bit more useful than just as bait."

Xander shrugged and looked away. "Yeah, I guess."

"You've got three Slayers who depend on you, Xander." She turned to the door. "If you think all you're good to them for is bait, well... Now who's seeing you and who isn't?"

:#:

Buffy met Faith in her room after she talked with Xander.

Faith paced back and forth in the space between Buffy's bed and dresser. Either she didn't want to sit on her bed to wait, or she was too nervous to stay still. Buffy had no clue which it might be; Faith was, pretty much, beyond her understanding.

Faith stopped and looked up as Buffy entered, but stayed silent until the door closed. "Well?" she said.

Buffy shrugged. "Went fine, I guess. He seems okay to me, Faith -- I mean, as okay as a guy can be after getting hit in the head with a rock."

Faith tossed her hair and resumed pacing. "Nah. No way. Something's up, something's wrong. It's been there for a while, since Sunnydale, maybe even before, I just couldn't see it 'till last night."

Buffy watched Faith pace for a moment. "You'd think his best friends would notice something."

"I see him more often," Faith said. "We work together for hours every day."

"I've known him longer."

"By what? A year and a half? That's not much, not at this point."

"Well, how about Willow?" Buffy said. "She grew up with him. She's known him her entire life."

Faith stopped pacing and quietly said, "Yeah, she grew up with him, but I grew up like him." She shook her head angrily, as if the admission came out before she thought. Faith stalked over to the door, but paused again with her hand on the doorknob. "Look, B, just keep an eye on him. He's barely hanging on right now. I'm worried."

Before Buffy could respond, Faith opened the door and took off.

:#:

Janet and Kim roomed together in Kennedy's house.

The living arrangements were done not long after the gang moved from Sunnydale. Janet and Kim barely knew one another at that point. Kennedy's house had four bedrooms, but Willow wanted an office to put her computer equipment, spellbooks, and things of that nature, so Willow and Kennedy shared a room, Xander and Andrew shared a room, and Janet and Kim shared a room.

They lasted two months until their first fight broke out. Two months later, Willow threatened to turn them into tadpoles if they interrupted another "private tutoring session" with Kennedy. After that, neither spent time in the room unless she was changing or sleeping, which lessened the fighting greatly.

They couldn't avoid one another completely, though.

Janet entered the room in just a towel, fresh out of the shower, and found Kim digging through the closet. Kim turned when Janet entered.

"Hey. Know where my Slayer t-shirt is?" Kim asked. The shirt was her idea of a joke; she hated the band, but loved to wear it out on patrol.

"No."

"Huh. Well, if you see it, toss it on my bed, would you?"

Janet grabbed a pair of pajama pants out of her drawer and slipped them on under her towel. "Sure."

Kim went to leave, but paused at the door. "Overheard Giles talking to Aud," she said. "They're gonna assign them Watchers tonight."

"Cool," Janet said. "Glad to have them in the club."

"They're already in the club," Kim snapped.

"The having-a-Watcher club," Janet clarified. She pulled on a tanktop and wrapped her towel around her hair. "I agreed with you that they've been Slayers for the past year."

"And the rest of it doesn't strike you as messed up?"

Janet turned around and looked at Kim. "What 'rest of it'?"

"They just assign a Watcher, and the Slayer doesn't get a say in it."

"What?" Janet scoffed. "You gotta be kidding me. I trust them -- Wood, Giles, and Harris. They'll make the right choice. Besides, if one of the twins doesn't like who she gets, you know she can say something."

"We're setting a precedent here," Kim argued.

"What?"

"It's the beginning, here, where it all starts. How we do things is how things will be done for generations. The Watchers always controlled the Slayers, told them what to do and who to do it with, and we got a chance to change that for all the girls who come after us," Kim said. "I think we have an obligation to make sure it's done right."

"Kim!" Kennedy called up from downstairs. "Let's go! You don't need that stupid shirt!"

Kim looked back at Janet. "I know you trust our Watchers now, and I do, too. But if we don't take the power now, take a stand now, who knows what kind of Watchers will be around in a hundred years?"

Janet shook her head. "You're just paranoid."

"Think about it," Kim said as she left the room.

:#:

"I would like to keep Audrey under my watch," Giles said. "The intensity of her Slayer dreams worries me, as well as her difficulty in separating them from waking life. And -- while I certainly mean no disrespect to either of you -- I feel my extensive training and experience gives me an advantage in this situation."

"I agree, absolutely," Robin said. He and Xander sat across from Giles; Robin sat in the chair on Xander's right. "I was ready to suggest that if you said otherwise."

Xander nodded. "Yeah," he said.

Giles slowly let out the breath he held. He certainly thought Audrey required extra attention, but he felt both his colleagues more than able to provide that. The juvenile nature of his avoidance embarrassed him, but the main reason he wanted to have Audrey as his Slayer was to avoid the awkwardness of working closely with Katharine every day.

"And as for Katharine..." he said. He trailed off. How long could he avoid her?

"Xander," Robin said.

Xander looked over at him. "Yeah? What's up?"

"No." Robin shook his head. "I mean, Katharine should work with Xander."

Giles leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk. He had figured Robin would want at least one of the new Slayers to work with him. "How do you figure?"

"Well, a couple of things," Robin said. "First off, both of the twins require more attention, as they're new and unsure of themselves, and Xander's more equipped to give that attention than me. I don't think it's a coincidence that my Slayers are the most stand-offish and independent of the group.

"Second, I'm more comfortable in an administrative position than an instructing position, and I'd like to begin to move more in that direction. I always thought I was a better principal than teacher, not counting the whole evil-school-falling-into-Hell thing." He shook his head and leaned forward. "We have to start preparing to find more Slayers, and we're already stressed to the maximum regarding our Watcher to Slayer ratio now. We need more Watchers, we need more structure within our ranks, and we can't wait until Slayers start pouring in."

"Proactive versus reactive," Xander said quietly.

"What?"

"Just something Katharine said to me, that first day she was here. She mentioned how we were all reactive instead of proactive."

Robin nodded. "Exactly. We need to find more Watchers now, before it's too late."

Giles removed his glasses. "Unfortunately, the Bringers were extraordinarily thorough in regards to the Watchers' Council. Even those merely in the first stages of consideration for Council membership were killed. I have contacts in occult circles I can approach for candidates, but it will take quite some time."

"I was thinking we should contact that guy Connor Reilly," Robin said.

"The one who called Faith?" Xander said.

"Yes. She said he sounded intelligent, and he knows about Slayers already."

Giles nodded. "It's a start. I'll make the calls tomorrow. However, Robin, until our numbers significantly increase, you will be needed on both ends, instruction and administration."

"I understand."

"I'd offer to work your training if you do my research," Xander said, "but I think if we let Janet and Kim spar together, we'd be down two Slayers."

They all chuckled, and Giles slipped his glasses back on. "I'd like to talk about last night's ambush now, if we could," he said.

Xander nodded. "The girls did great," he said. "They fought through it beautifully, turned the tables on the vamps pretty quickly. Especially Audrey -- her sparring is horrible, but put her up across from a vamp, and she turns into Jackie Chan."

"I don't know," Robin said slowly.

"No, seriously, she's incredible," Xander said. "She did this thing where she dove through--"

"No, sorry, that's not what I meant," Robin interrupted. "I didn't mean Audrey doesn't fight well or anything. What I mean is, I don't think the ambush was a failure, on their part."

"Go on," Giles said.

"Well, from what you've said, it was extremely premeditated," Robin said. "They took the time to get the blurb in the paper, took out the security guards, all of that. And then used tactics that were just terrible for a kill -- but excellent if someone wanted to observe the Slayers in action."

"So you think that the ambush might have gone exactly as the vampires planned it?" Giles asked.

"We dusted at least twelve vamps," Xander said. "That's a pretty high price."

"If we're dealing with one or two intelligent leaders, I can't think of any reason we should assume that this enemy cares about the loss of troops," Robin said. "That attack had a purpose, and it wasn't to kill Slayers -- although if that happened, I'm sure it would've been seen as a bonus."

"So what are we supposed to do?" Xander said.

"Find out who was behind it," Robin said.

:#:

Katharine could tell something bothered her sister. Audrey always slept on her side, curled up into a little ball with the covers pulled up to her nose. Tonight, she lied flat on her back, the covers tucked underneath her arms.

Katharine could guess what the problem was.

Xander came to her earlier that night and told her that in two days, once the trial period was over, she would join Faith, Janet, and Rona as one of his Slayers. About the same time, she saw Buffy and Giles pull Audrey aside and talk to her.

She was actually glad that Giles wasn't her Watcher. Ever since the night when she gave him the guitar, he had avoided her, and when that failed things were extremely awkward between them no matter how much she tried to just ignore him or put him to ease.

She figured Audrey felt differently that her crush wasn't her Watcher.

"You awake?" Audrey said. Her voice sounded tiny in the dark room.

"Yes," Katharine said. Silence. "Aud. What's wrong?"

"I... It's Xander. I like Xander."

"I know."

Audrey jerked upright. "You know? Oh, God, does he know?"

Katharine scoffed. "He's a boy. They never know."

Audrey groaned and flopped back against her pillow. After a moment, Katharine got up out of her bed and climbed into bed with her sister. Audrey curled up beside her, her head on Katharine's shoulder, and Katharine stroked her hair.

"What's bothering you, Audrey?" Katharine said. "Liking a boy doesn't usually make people sad."

"He's seen them," Audrey said softly.

"He's seen what?"

"Her breasts, Faith's breasts," Audrey said quickly. "Xander's seen Faith's breasts, and she's all pretty and sexy like you -- but dumber -- and now he's your Watcher and not mine and some other girl like Faith is going to charm him--"

Katharine held Audrey gently against her as she cried. She could feel her sniffles against her neck.

"Honey, no," Katharine said. "No one's going to go charming him except you, I promise. Not me, not Faith, no one. Okay?"

Audrey nodded. "But he's seen her--"

"You think there are guys in this world who haven't seen Faith's bosoms?"

Audrey laughed. "That's from _A League of Their Own_," she said.

Katharine nodded. "I know. And you tell anyone I like that movie, and I kick your butt."

"You'll try." Audrey tried to smile, but it wouldn't stick. She broke down again, harder this time. "Kat, I'm a freak even among the freaks," she sobbed. "No one is gonna want me."

Katharine stroked Audrey's hair and rocked her gently, a familiar position for her. "Shh, sweetie, it's okay," she whispered as Audrey's tears fell. "Everything's gonna be okay. There's no crying in baseball."

-:-


	14. Departures

**Chapter Fourteen**  
**_Departures_**

Weight restrictions on airplane luggage were grossly unfair, Dawn felt.

She left for college back in California the next morning on an eight a.m. flight. Her clothes and shoes all lay strewn out all over her bedroom, and two large suitcases sat open on the bed. Buffy refused to box up and ship clothes out to her, but the airlines had an eighty pound limit for flights and that barely covered her shoes. Now, she had to choose what to bring out to San Francisco and what to leave in Cleveland. She probably would only be able to take a few weeks' worth of clothes, if that.

She looked up to see Katharine standing in the doorway, which was weird. They had barely spoken in the weeks the girl had been there.

Katharine looked around at the clothes and raised an eyebrow. "College?"

Dawn nodded. "Yeah. Stanford, out in San Francisco."

"My second cousin twice removed went there," Katharine said. Dawn looked at her strangely, and she shrugged. "So you're getting out of the gig, huh? Cool."

"You know, you could leave any time you wanted," Dawn said. "No one is forcing you to stay."

"Oh, I know." At Dawn's skeptical look, she smirked. "No, really, I do. I'm cool with this. I was just making conversation, you know? You're leaving. We've never talked."

Dawn nodded. She bent down to pick up a shirt, but then a thought struck her and she snapped her eyes back to Katharine, who sighed. "I don't have a crush on you, either," Katharine snapped.

"What? No, I--"

"You totally did. It's okay. I've been told my social awkwardness comes off that way sometimes."

"Uh, okay," Dawn said. Now she understood why the other girls -- even Helen and Chao-Ahn, who were her friends -- thought Katharine was weird. It was simply because she was weird. Yet, she was supposed to be the more normal twin. Scary.

Dawn packed for a few minutes while Katharine stood in the doorway and watched her. Finally, Katharine asked, "So what are you gonna study?"

"Well, at first I just wanted to get as far away from demons and vampires as possible, so naturally I looked into accounting -- but that's far more evil than any apocalypse," Dawn said. Katharine laughed. "Then I really thought about it. When I was happiest about being Buffy's sister was when they let me help with research or patrolling or food runs or whatever. And I realized it wasn't getting to be a Scooby or finally being seen as a big girl that I liked, it was that what I was doing was helping people."

"So you're going to study to become a Watcher?"

"No. I'm going to study psychology and counseling and work with battered and abused women."

Katharine smiled. "That's really cool," she said, and Dawn felt that, for the first time, Katharine really meant it when she said something was cool. "I'm actually almost jealous."

"Almost jealous, huh? Gee, thanks." Dawn threw a shirt at Katharine, which she easily caught. "You ever go to college?"

"I'm your year, Dawn. But, no, I never even finished high school, so no college."

"Oh. Sorry. Was it because you were called?"

"As a Slayer? Nah. I stopped going a couple months before that, a little after Audrey got hurt. But don't tell her that."

Dawn nodded. They stood there for a moment, awkwardness between them.

"Come on. I'll help you pack," Katharine said, and the awkwardness went away.

:#:

While Katharine helped Dawn pack, Giles ate lunch in his office with Xander and Robin.

Over the past four weeks, since the meeting after Xander's group was ambushed, they pressed the vampire and demon communities for information on leaders of the local vampires. Pressed hard.

And came up blank.

No one knew anything. It wasn't that the vampires or demons were afraid to tell. They were all afraid of whomever it was, but a good deal of that fear stemmed from the complete lack of knowledge that surrounded him. Or her -- no one even knew a gender.

This vampire was smart, though. Everyone they questioned agreed on that.

"This guy's like a ghost," Xander said. "How does someone build this kind of rep and still not show up on anyone's radar?"

"He's on our radar," Robin said.

"No, he's not. That's the thing -- he should be on our radar. We know this guy's around here. But he's not showing at all."

"Perhaps we're looking in the wrong places," Robin said. "We could--"

"Actually, I hate to be the one to suggest this," Giles said, "but perhaps we should just wait for him or her to make another move. Reactive might be the proper philosophy here."

Robin and Xander stayed quiet, so Giles continued. "We've let this take up all of our efforts for the past four weeks. By concentrating on just the one thing, who knows how much else might have slipped through the proverbial cracks."

"Like what?" Xander said.

"Has anyone made contact with our potential Watcher candidate, for instance?"

Xander and Robin both groaned.

"Yes." Giles removed his glasses. "I will make a call out to our Mr. Reilly, and let's return to our normal Slaying schedule, shall we?"

:#:

Cole flipped off the recorder and smiled. "That's what I was waiting for," he said.

"Tonight?" Donner asked.

"We'll wait a few nights. Let them get back into a groove first."

:#:

In Los Angeles, Connor Reilly and John Pollack, Connor's best friend since childhood, loaded furniture into a trailer. They rented an apartment near campus together, and while the lease technically didn't start until August first -- tomorrow -- the landlord said they could pick up the keys and move in a day early.

Which was good -- Connor was ready to get out of Los Angeles. That summer was difficult. Two sets of memories fought inside his head. He thought of them Connor and Stephen. Connor, the name Angel gave him, had the life Angel gave him: friends, family, a normal suburban upbringing with the Reillys. Stephen, the name given him by Holtz, had the life Holtz gave to him: a hell dimension, the hunt, and the kill. No one else still alive knew about Stephen's memories. Los Angeles held both sets of memories, but San Francisco only had the past year, only had one set of memories. There was less confusion there.

His phone rang around ten in the morning. He didn't recognize the number on the caller ID -- some area code that looked familiar, but he couldn't place.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Yes, I'm looking for a Mr. Connor Reilly," the caller said. He spoke carefully, hesitantly, and with an English accent.

Connor's stomach dropped.

"That's me," he said.

"Yes, my name is Rupert Giles. I am the current head of the Watcher's Council, located in Cleveland, Ohio -- the organization which Faith Covington works for --"

"No," he said.

"I'm sorry, but you don't even know what I was going to say," Giles said.

"I'm not interested." Connor's easy California accent was gone; the harsh, clipped phrasing and economy of speech Stephen learned on Quar'toth took over. "I don't want anything from you. Do you understand me? Leave me alone."

Connor flipped his cell closed and stuffed it back in his pocket.

"Dude, you okay?" John asked from behind him.

Connor turned around and grinned. "Yeah, I'm cool. Telemarketer -- I gave 'em my Tyler Durden impression."

John chuckled, but wasn't entirely satisfied. "You sure you're okay, man? You've been pretty short-tempered all summer. That van didn't scramble your brain, did it?"

Connor pushed John -- lightly, not enough to cause suspicion. "Whatever, man. Just ready to get out of L.A." That should satisfy him; Connor always hated Los Angeles, much preferred to be in San Francisco at college.

Together, Connor and John grabbed a couch and carried it to the trailer. Connor could've lifted it on his own, but that would certainly have raised suspicion.

He thought about Rupert Giles and the Watcher's Council. He knew a little about that, from when Faith came to help with Angelus and the Beast two years ago. He had no idea what they wanted with him -- probably questions about Angel, although why they didn't ask over a month ago when he first called he had no idea -- and both Connor and Stephen wanted to call them up and see what he could do to help.

But he remembered his promise to his father, as the building fell around them: he would be safe. But how safe could he really stay?

He was almost out of Los Angeles; only a few more hours. Maybe San Francisco, and school, would lessen the temptation to rejoin the fight.

:#:

Six days later, on Friday, Buffy got Andrew's _Lord of the Rings_ box set in the mail. Andrew was off in Borneo or Baghdad or Belfast -- someplace with a B, she couldn't remember -- and Buffy came up with a devious plan.

"Let's watch them all tonight!" she said to her Slayers. They all sat together in Buffy's living room after dinner. The other Slayers were all getting ready for that night's patrol. "Come on, tomorrow's Saturday and we can sleep in."

"Is... is this the one with Orlando Boom?" Audrey asked.

"Bloom!" Helen, Buffy, and Chao-Ahn emphatically corrected her.

"Yeah," Audrey said. "He's cute. I like Boromir the best, though. He's all manly and conflicted."

"I like Legolas," Helen said.

Willow came in from the kitchen with a big cup of tea in her hands. "I'm more of an Eowyn fan, myself," she said.

The girls all laughed. Helen ran into the kitchen to grab ice cream -- which Willow refused to taste. "I don't have a Slayer's metabolism!" she said. "That'll go straight to my hips, and I have enough trouble keeping up with Kennedy as it is."

"Oh my God!" Audrey exclaimed. "I never thought of that! I can eat all the candy I want."

"One of the perks of fighting evil," Buffy commented.

"Hey! I fight evil, and I never got that perk," Willow complained.

Giles emerged from the basement with Robin in time to catch the end of the conversation. "Iâ�™m afraid that perk passed me by as well," he said.

"Watchers!" Buffy said. "You two wanna watch movies with us? We're doing a _Lord of the Rings_ marathon tonight. Andrew's DVDs just got in, so we're gonna make sure they work for him."

Giles grinned, but shook his head. "Thank you, but I have some work I need to finish, and I prefer not to witness classic literature turned into a cute-boy festival."

"Classic literature?" Helen asked, confused.

Giles glared at the youngest Slayer. "You just had several more books added to your required reading list, my dear," he said.

As Helen flopped back against the couch dramatically, Buffy said, "What about you, Robin?"

"Well, actually--" Robin looked around and lowered his voice. "Faith's seemed kinda down and distant lately, so I rented us a room at this really nice bed and breakfast out by the lake," he said. "I'm going to pick her up from work and surprise her out there."

Giles grinned as the girls cooed and generally made noise to embarrass Robin.

"I don't know, Mr. Wood," Willow said. "Maybe you need to teach some of this romantic stuff to certain Slayers under your watch."

Robin looked down and coughed. "I'll, um, see what I can do there, Willow."

:#:

Willow, who got up for work that morning at seven, called it a night after the extended edition of _The Fellowship of the Ring_, but the Slayers continued on with the next film.

Halfway through _The Two Towers_, at around one in the morning, the doorbell rang.

Buffy paused the movie on a nice shot of Aragorn and Legolas together. The girls paused for a moment, too, until the doorbell rang again.

Buffy laughed. "I'll give you two-to-one odds it's Xander, and he forgot his keys."

Helen jumped up from the sofa. "I'll get it," she said.

Audrey stood up, too. "I'm going to get drink from kitchen," she said. "Want anything?"

"Yeah, I'll take a diet Coke," Buffy said.

Audrey took the back hallway to the kitchen, while Helen skipped through the big recreation room -- previously the formal living room, now just a big room with lots of comfy chairs for Slayers to lounge on and books to read (along with subscriptions to _Jane_, _Cosmopolitan_, and _Entertainment Weekly_) -- to the foyer. The base of Buffy's house, not counting the garage addition Xander estimated was done twenty years after the original construction, was essentially a big box. The foyer, stairwell, and back hallway bisected the first floor, with the kitchen and dining room on the north side and the T.V. room and rec room adjacent to the garage on the south side.

"Who is it?" Helen called out as she put her eye to the front door's peephole.

A group of five stood on the front porch, two guys and three girls. Their clothes were torn and dirty and bloody. The one closest to the door had a hand over his neck, and Helen could tell he'd been bitten.

"Is-- is this the right house?" the one with the bite said. He was about average height, probably in his early twenties, with shaggy black hair. Helen thought he was probably very cute when he wasn't pale and bloody from a vampire attack. "God, we were attacked, some girls stopped them and this guy, Sander, told us to come here."

Helen quickly flipped the deadbolt and opened the door -- and found a huge handgun only a few feet from her face, pointed right at her.

Helen stared at the gun, dumfounded and unable to react. Her training prepared her for monsters and demons and swords and axes, and as a Slayer she was capable of meeting those -- capably, at least, if not without fear. The gun, though, was from another world. A world where Helen was just a fourteen-year-old girl, not a chick with superpowers; a world where girls her age didn't go out long after dark, and were never supposed to be alone with scary men with guns.

Helen froze.

A voice said, "Don't move, Slayer," but she barely heard. And certainly was incapable of movement.

:#:

Cole held the gun, a remnant of the dearly departed investigator Stockton, down at his side and out of the line of sight of whichever Slayer would answer the door. He held his free hand over the bite wound Donner made in his neck a few minutes earlier.

The plan was simple: appear at the door beat-up and bloody, and trick the Slayers into thinking they were human. Once she opened the door, everyone was to follow his lead.

The door opened and Helen, the youngest of the Slayers, looked out. Alone.

Cole brought the gun up into the doorway, as close to her face as he could get it; the silencer at the end of the barrel extended several inches into the house. "Don't move, Slayer," he said. The look on her face -- wide eyed and expressionless, completely terrified -- told him that, at least for now, that warning was unnecessary.

"Move an inch, and I will shoot you right in the face," he said. Helen made a high-pitched noise, almost a wince, but stayed still. "You might think that, with Slayer speed and reflexes, you can move out of the way in time, get out before I pull the trigger. You can't. I'm just as fast as you, Slayer, and from this range, I won't miss."

Donner stepped up behind him. He towered over Cole, almost tall enough to have to duck through doorways, and his size always added an extra touch of intimidation. Cole knew, though, that his approach was just as much a warning to Cole as it was a tactic to intimidate the Slayer; for the plan to work, they had to get inside before the other Slayers came.

"Your family religious?" Cole asked. "Maybe your friends? Can't have much of an open-casket funeral with your head blown clear off, now can you? But you have a choice. You can invite us in."

Helen's eyes jerked up to his from the gun barrel.

She opened her mouth, but Cole cut her off before she could speak. "We don't just want you dead. If that was the case, you'd be dead. So, obviously, we want something else, something inside. When someone needs something from you -- like an invitation -- there's power there. Maybe you can turn that to your advantage; if you give us what we want, maybe you can take something in return. But if not? I blow your face off." Helen shrank back from the venom in his voice; he raised the gun a bit more to put it more prominently in her vision, and she froze. "Choose."

"Hey, Helen, was I right?" Buffy yelled from the other room. "Xander forgot his keys?"

"You have three more seconds," Cole said. "Invite us in, and keep your face."

In the lost and alone voice of a terrified fourteen-year-old girl with no real hope, Helen whispered, "Come in."

Cole pulled the trigger and shot her in the base of her neck.

-:-


	15. Questions of Immortality

**Chapter Fifteen**  
_**Questions of Immortality**_

The shot struck Helen before she processed the sound. Her body fell in upon itself. Everything went silent. She dropped forward to her knees, her hands at her throat; she could feel the blood pouring out of her, down her torn throat, up into her mouth. The vampires all entered, went around her and ignored her. Already she didn't matter. She was just an obstacle, a means to get to her friends, the real Slayers. The grown-up Slayers.

The vampire who shot her closed the front door once all the others were inside. He glanced down at Helen and she looked up at him for a moment, only a moment, before he turned away and went toward the dining room. The big vampire followed him; the other three went to the rec room, toward Buffy and Chao-Ahn.

Helen fell to her side. She felt the cold tile on her face warm as her blood spread. The light in the room dimmed. She never heard anything, though, as she died.

:#:

Audrey heard the shot from the kitchen. She didn't recognize the sound, but she knew something was wrong, that it wasn't Xander at the door. She put Buffy's diet Coke on the counter and moved into the dining room doorway. Two vampires moved into the dining room from the foyer, one tall and broad-shouldered and one average in size and looks; two vampires she recognized from her dreams.

The looked up and saw her, and she saw that they recognized her, too.

Silently, Audrey walked farther into the room. The two vampires moved forward, too, just as silently. They could hear screams and crashes and other sounds of the fight in the rec room, but none cared. The Slayer moved forward, ready for the fight against opponents superior in size, numbers, and experience.

Cole and Donner, she remembered.

She slid gracefully between them as they attacked. The two fought well together, as the taller Donner attacked high and Cole attacked low.

:#:

Chao-Ahn giggled after Buffy called back to Helen and Xander. Even though he wasn't her Watcher, Xander's natural affability -- and his friendship with Buffy -- endeared him to her. Even when her English was practically non-existent, he always had a smile for her. Buffy laughed, too.

Their laughter muffled the quiet sounds of silenced gunshot and body on tile.

Chao-Ahn and Buffy got up together and walked toward the foyer, to check on Helen and Xander. Buffy took her ice-cream bowl with her. They walked into the rec room and paused. Three vampires, all female, stood in the room between the Slayers and the bloody body in the foyer.

"Helen!" Chao-Ahn screamed.

The Slayers and vampires leaped forward at the same time.

With a wordless yell, Chao-Ahn kicked the coffee table into the shins of one of the vampires. As it fell forward, she grabbed its hair and slammed it face-first into the table. The vampire's head bounced off the coffee table, and Chao-Ahn viciously pummeled it again and again with her fists, right then left. After the third punch, the vampire's head stayed on the table, and the fourth blow cracked the skull and splintered the table. Chao-Ahn, consumed with rage, kept punching.

The other two vampires rushed Buffy, one in front of the other. Buffy slung her ice cream into the face of the first; its arm came up, and Buffy stepped to the side and smashed the ceramic bowl against the vampire's elbow, breaking both. The vampire cried out in pain as it passed Buffy, but the second punched her in the face as she turned to face it. Buffy grunted and fell back as she tried to keep her balance. She threw the small shard of bowl left in her hand at the second vampire, but it just batted it aside and advanced.

Chao-Ahn heard Buffy grunt. She punched her limp vampire one more time, and the coffee table fully collapsed. She grabbed a chunk of the wood and staked the vampire, then tossed the wood to Buffy and attacked the healthy vampire. It turned its attention to her, and barely blocked the roundhouse kick she threw at it. Buffy attacked from the side and kicked its knees out, and Chao-Ahn delivered a forward snap kick to its face as it dropped to one knee. Buffy easily staked it.

:#:

Cole watched silently from the foyer as Buffy and Chao-Ahn teamed up to take out the third vampire. The vampire was young, one Donner sired only a few nights ago, just like the other two he assumed were dust. He knew the three wouldn't stand a chance against the Slayers, but they weren't supposed to kill them -- or even hurt them. He just wanted the Slayers distracted for a moment, and that they did accomplish.

They dusted the third vampire, and Cole grinned at the menace in the Slayers' eyes as they turned and saw him.

He drew the gun before they took two steps. "Stay where you are," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

They stopped. Buffy glared at the gun, then turned her gaze upon him. "You shot her," she said. Her voice was quiet and hard, merciless. "You are so dead."

"Hello, Buffy Summers," Cole said. He kept his voice pleasant, and smiled. He looked at her, silently, for a moment. She said nothing, and he continued. "Quite a setup you have here. Slayer Central and all."

"Yeah. I'm flattered," Buffy said.

"Now, I think you're going beyond sarcasm, there," Cole said. "Although it doesn't surprise me that you take something to an extreme."

Buffy tossed her head angrily. "Let's just skip the bad-guy babble, okay?"

Cole shrugged. "Again, not surprising me, Buffy. You never once struck me a thinker. For instance, did it ever occur to you that in your seven years on the Hellmouth, you weren't fighting to vanquish evil?" Buffy just stared at him, so he continued. "You were just a variable in a balanced equation, not the solution. Not a savior. You increase a variable, you unbalance the equation, and things fall toward entropy. Haven't you learned anything? First time, you got Angelus, Kendra's death, and Faith's stroll on the dark side. Now, instead of two Slayers, you have -- how many? Oh, right. You don't know."

Buffy stared at him, but Cole could tell his words got to her. "How do you know all that?" she said.

Cole smiled and opened the door. "I like to learn. See you later, Buffy. Chao-Ahn." He exited and closed the door behind him.

:#:

The door closed and Buffy immediately ran to Helen. She slid to her knees on the foyer tile and checked for a pulse.

She slumped forward and closed her eyes. "Nothing," she said softly to Chao-Ahn, who stood beside her. Chao-Ahn choked back a sob and dropped to her knees. She put her hand on Helen's forehead and said something softly in Chinese.

Buffy fought back her own tears as she looked around. "Chao-Ahn," she said. "Where's Audrey?"

:#:

Xander leaned against a tree as he and Rona waited for Janet and Katharine to finish their patrol rotation. He liked to lean, lately. He never told any of the girls, but their repeated viewings of _My So-Called Life_ had left yet another pop-culture impression on his impressionable pop-culture psyche. So whenever he had a few moments, he leaned.

He didn't have long to lean, though, before Janet and Katharine approached.

"Get anything?" Rona asked.

"Just two risers. Other than that, this place is dead." Janet paused and looked around the cemetery. "Uh, no pun intended."

"Girl, that was weak," Rona said.

Janet hid her face in mock shame. Xander looked at Katharine, and the two shared a quiet smile.

When she first joined the group, Xander thought there would be problems with Katharine. Although she was more than a year older than Rona and Janet, they were her senior in rank and experience. She had already shown a dislike for Faith, and he figured that his other two Slayers would follow quickly.

That wasn't the case at all, though. Katharine had a quiet, sharp sense of humor; Rona and Janet constantly joked and played off one another, and Katharine was usually content to just laugh at them and interject the occasional barb. They got along great both on and off patrol, and so far there were no issues at all when it came to following the chain of command. Everything seemed fine, and once again, Giles and Robin were right while Xander Harris was wrong.

Still, he wasn't sure how she stood in regard to Faith -- but, then again, he wasn't sure how he stood with Faith, either. Her work schedule at the bar got shifted not long after the cemetery ambush, and now her work nights fell on patrol nights more often than not. Xander's job kept them apart during the day, and when they were together there was always someone else around. He wanted to talk to her about the night they spent together.

Sort of.

He didn't know how he felt about what happened, how it happened, or anything about it, really. The first night with Faith, back in high school, had been intense -- and this one was, too, but in an entirely different manner. He knew what he was doing this time, and what she was doing, and that made a lot of difference. He knew how it felt -- it felt incredible -- but he had no idea how he felt about it. Part of him wanted to talk to her about it, figure out the jumble of emotions, and part of him just wanted to shut out all of his feelings before the inevitable happened and someone got hurt or killed.

Not that he really had a choice. Faith had made herself completely inaccessible and taken that option away from him.

:#:

Faith actually enjoyed bartending.

It had its down moments, just like anything else did. An incredible amount of losers hit on her, but that was something she was used to. The live music acts sometimes really sucked. The other bartenders were too slow to keep up with her, so she ended up covering three quarters of the bar rather than just her half.

Still, she enjoyed it. The music in the joint was usually good, and being able to dance around while she worked really made the time go by. The bouncers adored her and immediately took care of any trouble that came up, so she could just stay in the background and be a normal girl -- not something she wanted to do on a regular basis, kicking ass was just too much fun, but it was nice to dabble.

Her night was an early one. She got to the bar around seven to help set up, and she would get off around midnight. Most of the other bartenders hated the short shift, for it usually meant less tips. Faith didn't mind, though; her tips were always higher than the rest, so the short shift didn't matter as much.

Robin came in a few minutes before midnight.

He walked up to the bar with a little grin on his face. "Hey there, beautiful," he said.

"What's up?" she said. She grabbed a bottle of vodka and spun it around in her hand. "You want a drink?"

"I got us a room at a nice bed and breakfast," Robin said. "Over by the lake. It's all set up and just waiting for you."

Faith smiled and leaned forward a little to give Robin some cleavage. "That sounds nice. Wait around, I get off in a little bit."

She poured him a drink and went to take care of the rest of the people around the bar.

It was strange, being with Robin, ever since the night she spent with Xander. She felt bad, that she had cheated on Robin; he treated her well, better than any other guy ever had -- except, possibly, Xander, when they were back in high school. She sometimes wondered what her life would be like, where she would be now, if she hadn't turned down his offer of support that night. Maybe she wouldn't go to the Mayor; maybe she would, after Wes brought the Council thugs to get her.

She didn't have much of a choice now, though. She wanted to talk to Xander, see how he felt about how things went down that night, but they were never alone together. Every time she saw him, they were on patrol, or with a big crowd of other Slayers around.

Obviously, he didn't want to talk about it. So forget him.

When she got off work, she turned off her cell phone and Robin's. The night was theirs, and she wasn't going to share it with anyone.

:#:

It was all just so much background noise.

Xander got the phone call just before they got into the car. He listened for a few minutes, then snapped his phone shut and stuffed it into his pants pocket. "Trouble," he said. "Come on, we gotta go."

Vamps raided the house, he explained. No one knew how they got in. They knew about the Slayers, knew their names without being told. They brought a gun, and killed Helen.

And her sister was gone.

She sat in the back, beside Janet, who held her hand. She didn't remember when that happened. Xander babbled some as he drove, different scenarios of why Audrey might be missing but still alive. She didn't listen.

Helen's body was gone, the foyer cleaned up. Made sense, she figured; the situation was too much for the authorities, so had to hide it. Was there a logical explanation for why a fourteen-year-old girl whose parents were killed a year and a half ago lived there? Not that she could think of.

She sat on the couch beside Chao-Ahn, who started to apologize. She shook her head and put a finger up to Chao-Ahn's lips. She didn't want apologies, especially not from someone who wasn't at fault. Chao-Ahn looked down at the floor, and they held hands silently. People in the room talked. Willow needed a personal item. Kim and Janet both wanted to go looking for Audrey; they seemed to think that their rare agreement meant the idea couldn't be wrong. Faith and Robin had their phones off.

Giles crouched down in front of her, concerned. He looked up at her until she met his eyes. She wanted to punch him.

"Katharine, are you all right?" he asked softly.

She nodded. "Yeah. Waiting for my sister to die? Nothing new here."

Giles winced. "We don't know that. She could have followed them, or, or... there are a million different reasons for her to be gone--"

She shook her head. "You're, like, the world's worst liar," she said softly. "She's dead. We both know it."

"That's not necessarily true," Giles said. "There's always hope."

"My hope is that she is dead. If they kept her alive, it's to torture her or turn her."

Giles opened his mouth, but couldn't find anything to say. She stared at him, and after a moment he looked down and removed his glasses.

"I've already killed her once," Katharine said. "But there's no plug to pull this time. We're even more helpless. So, yeah, I hope she's already dead. I hope she's not coming back."

The background noise stopped. She looked away from Giles, at everyone else who stared at her.

:#:

Audrey regained consciousness in some sort of warehouse. Boxes and crates of all sorts were piled all over, with barely enough room between them to fit a forklift. She sat in some sort of metal chair, perhaps steel, and was tightly bound against it, her hands and arms bound painfully behind her. Her head was loose, though, so she could look around.

She was seated in the middle of an intersection of two lanes. She faced a corner of one pile, so she had a clear view down one direction of each lane, and could barely see anything down the other direction with the edge of her periphery. There wasn't much to see; the light in the warehouse was very dim, and she couldn't make out the end of the lanes in any direction.

Audrey took a deep breath. She didn't remember anything about how she got there -- her last memory involved ice cream and Buffy's proclamation that she was more warrior princess than Eowyn could ever be -- but that was nothing new. The dull ache at the base of her skull was explanation enough for the memory loss. She tugged at her bonds, pulled as hard as she could at them.

"Don't bother," a voice said. "You won't break them. I've planned for your capture for weeks now."

Cole strolled over into her line of sight. Donner lurked over to her other side. Even though she was tied up, they still split her attention between them.

"You," Audrey said. "I-- I dreamed you. He threw the boy inside, and you wanted an invitation. You killed her."

Cole smiled. "That's fascinating," he said. He crouched down in front of her. "You dreamed -- a Slayer dream -- about my experiment? The one about who can and can't issue an invitation to a vampire?"

Audrey nodded. "I didn't realize what it meant," she said.

Cole leaned back and shook his head. "That's fascinating," he said again. He stood up and walked over to Donner, a look of intense interest on his face.

"Your name is Cole," Audrey said. "He's Donner."

"Right again," Cole said.

"So what do you want, yo?" She tried to sound tougher than she was, more confident than she was. She tried to sound like Faith would in the same situation, even though she knew she failed miserably. She knew she was helpless, and she always was a bad liar. "Why take me instead of just killing me?"

Cole walked back over to her. "Knowledge," he said. He climbed into her lap, his legs straddled around her and the back of the chair. He smiled, his face above hers, his lips only a few inches from her forehead. "I was twenty-three when I was turned, a mathematician and scientist and just your general genius loser. Nineteen-eighty-three, it was, the very beginning of personal computers, a whole world of knowledge about to extend to the fingertips of anyone with a keyboard.

"Except that's the thing about knowledge. Everything you learn opens up more things to learn -- it's really quite fascinating. Infinite knowledge: that's what immortality means to me, little Slayer. All the things I could never learn before, when time was a barrier instead of a friend."

Cole leaned forward and nuzzled his cheek against Audrey's temple. She tried to pull away, but he just shifted his body on hers until she had no more room to get away. "I've never sired another vampire," Cole whispered. "Not in twenty-one years." He pulled his body back away from her, but stayed seated on her lap. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. "But now, the next thing I want to learn: what does immortality mean to you, Audrey Beckford?"

Cole's face shifted. He pushed her head to the side and drank from her neck. He traced a cut along his neck with a finger, and with the last of her strength, Audrey drank.

:#:

Katharine woke the next morning, the events of her dream still fresh in her mind. Cole and Donner, she thought as she looked at her sister's empty bed.

She recognized the boxes and crates. She'd patrolled there with Xander, around the shipping warehouses on the lake. She didn't know which specific warehouse it was, but there were few enough that a determined Slayer could check them all out in one night. That night, she thought. The night her sister would rise.

First, though, she had to get through the day. She got out of bed and got ready to head to Buffy's for training. Easy enough to keep them in the dark, she thought.

She had experience with what people expected from a grieving sister.

-:-


	16. Lies Your Mother Told You

**Chapter Sixteen**  
**_Lies Your Mother Told You_**

The next afternoon, after he worked on the car with Robin and talked to his Slayers, Xander met with Giles in his office.

"I'm worried about Katharine," Xander said.

"I can well imagine why," Giles said.

"Janet said that she was despondent and laconic today at training. And then she told me what those words meant, so I was able to figure out that it was bad."

Giles rolled his eyes. "I heard you use those words not three months ago, Xander."

"Yeah." Xander shrugged. "I know. Just -- laugh in the face of danger and despair. Or at least, trying, you know?"

Giles nodded. "Yes. I know." He sighed. "I think it's unavoidable for Katharine to be upset and distant. Her sister is gone and, as much as it pains me to admit it, either dead or turned."

"I don't even want to think about that second option," Xander said.

"Well, you have to," Giles said. Xander looked up at him, surprised by the harshness in Giles' voice. "A Watcher must deal with reality, Xander. We cannot treat the world as we wish it to be -- or as we fear it to be. We must use our reason and logic to clear the way for the Slayer through the darkness, to lead and to follow along the true path. Reality is that Willow's locator spell indicated that Audrey is dead."

"I know." Xander took a deep breath and held it in, tried to reign in his temper. "I just -- I hate that she's going to have to kill her sister, Giles. The first vamp I staked was my best friend, Jesse. He was like a brother to me; his parents were more like parents to me than my own were. I hate that she has to go through that."

Giles leaned forward and rested his elbows on her desk. "Perhaps you're telling this to the wrong person, Xander."

Xander sighed and closed his eyes. "She's just so hard to talk to, Giles."

"Is that so?" Giles grinned. "I offer you one sixteen-year-old Buffy Summers, accompanied by a pair of babbling, sarcastic sixteen-year-olds I'm sure you're quite familiar with."

Xander glared at Giles. "You're going to hold that over my head every single time I complain about the difficulty of being a Watcher, aren't you?"

"Sometimes, that which we most fear is, in fact, reality," Giles said. He leaned back in his chair. "Go speak your Slayer, Xander."

Xander stood up. "Have I mentioned just how much I hate your Socratic Method?"

Giles stopped Xander as he reached the door. "Oh, one more thing," he said. Xander turned around and looked at him. "Do you know of anything wrong between Robin and Faith? They've seemed... off, lately."

"Not at all. We reached an agreement a while ago," Xander said. "Since I'm friends with one and the Watcher of the other, neither one discusses any sort of relationship stuff with me."

Giles stared at him for a few seconds. He nodded and pulled over a book. "Very well. Thank you."

Xander hesitated for a second, unsure of how much Giles knew, before he left to talk with Katharine.

:#:

Katharine read over the letter again. It didn't say much, not nearly everything she wished she could say to Rupert. What little reference to her feelings she put in there was appropriately hidden -- he would be the only one able to understand any of it, so no one else would know unless he wanted them to. She didn't think she would survive the night, not really, but it would be easier for Giles if he didn't have to deal with other people making a bigger deal out of her death to him because she--

Loved him? She wasn't sure. Another good reason to be vague.

Someone knocked on her door. She folded up the letter and put it into her journal. "Come in," she called.

Xander opened the door and walked in. "Hey there."

Katharine tried to smile for him. "Hey. What's up?"

He walked over and sat down on across from her, on Audrey's bed. "Just wanted to come say hey, see how you were doing."

"I figured it was either that or hot, torrid sex."

Xander grinned. "Oh, so it's an either/or, huh?"

"Afraid so."

"I see. Well, in that case, how are you?" Xander said.

And, she didn't know why, Katharine gave an honest answer instead of just saying she was fine. "I don't know. Antsy. I can barely concentrate on anything. I've got all this energy, more than usual, and it just keeps coming out in nervous ticks."

"I understand."

"Yeah. I'm sure you do."

"The first vampire I ever staked was my best friend," Xander said. "I spent more time at his house than I did my own. It was me, Jesse, and Willow, like the three amigos. So, yeah, I have a little idea of how you feel, having to stake Audrey."

"No, I don't have to," Katharine said. "Audrey's dead, Harris. I don't care who kills the vampire with her face. I just want it dust."

Xander nodded. He was quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry she didn't at least get a funeral," he finally said. "I know how that feels, with Jesse, and... others."

Katharine shrugged. "I'm not religious, and neither was she. Would've felt fake, so no big. She's dead, that's what matters."

Xander sighed. He tried to smile, but his attempt fell as flat as hers did earlier. He stood and walked to the door.

"She cared about you," Katharine said. Again, she wasn't sure why.

Xander paused with his hand on the doorknob. "I was clueless," he said softly.

"You're a boy," Katharine scoffed.

"Yeah," Xander said, quietly.

"She thought it was cool how patient you always were with her," Katharine said. "And how you always used her full name, never just 'Aud'."

He winced. "My--" He shook his head, started again. "I had a... girl, in Sunnydale," he said slowly. "I -- well, I didn't..." He sighed. "She didn't go by it, and no one else knows this, but her real name was Aud."

"She didn't make it out," Katharine said.

Xander nodded. He brought his hand up and wiped his face. "I'm sorry I couldn't keep her safe, that our spell got her killed--"

"No." Katharine cut him off firmly. "No, no. Audrey was about to die anyway, and that spell kept her alive. It gave her life and a reason to live it. She believed in it, all of it. Don't feel guilty."

Xander opened his mouth, but said nothing. After a second, he opened the door and left.

Katharine stared at the door. After a minute, she opened up her journal and started another letter, this time to her Watcher.

:#:

Xander went home after he talked to Katharine.

He wondered about the conversation they had. It was short, barely touched the surface of any issue, but he felt like he learned more about her than he had on any of their patrols together, or any training session, or any research session. She said she didn't care who killed vampire Audrey, but he wasn't sure about that. She was so vehemently against staking Audrey; something was off. The line about Audrey being dead and not being religious, Xander had heard it before. It seemed an appropriate sisterly response, and just obscure enough to pass a casual inspection.

He didn't think that the day after Audrey's death was the time to stage an intervention, though. She needed time, at least a few days, before she would be ready to talk about it at all. He could wait; no one had a clue where Audrey was, so Katharine wouldn't be able to go after her on her own. He could talk to Janet and Rona and Faith about it, see if maybe they would be better off talking to Katharine than him.

The other groups had already left for patrol when he got home. He found Faith, Janet, Rona, and Robin down in the basement. Robin sat at the foot of the stairs, his head down as he fiddled with a stake in his hands. He glanced up as Xander walked down, withdrawn, angry lines around his eyes. He looked back down at the stake, and flipped it around in his hands a few times. Xander stepped around him and into the basement without a word.

Janet and Rona were over by a supply chest. They dug through the heavy padding, used for full-speed and full-strength sparring just thinking about made Xander's body ache in empathy. The girls taped their wrists up and wore special gloves Giles put together -- heavily padded on the back of the hand down to the second knuckle, they left the hand open for holds and had a heavy, dense metal around the wrist for both support and four pounds of added weight. Xander had tried them once, and was amazed at how quickly those four extra pounds wore out his arms. The Slayers rarely seemed slowed down at all. Rona and Janet also put on heavy vests with two inches of padding, helmets, elbow and knee pads, and padded boots similar in form and function to the gloves.

They both looked angry and pensive, and neither looked at the other as they got ready. Xander would have to remember to thank Robin for sitting in later. He wasn't around earlier, and if the two pulled out the heavy pads without anyone around to stop them -- Faith certainly didn't count, and was more apt to join in than slow them down -- one or both could get seriously hurt.

Faith was off in the corner with one of the heavy bags. He had no idea how long she'd been there, but sweat stained almost the entire back of her shirt, and the extra-reinforced bag had a noticeable bend in the middle where her blows landed. The chain didn't look too stable, either; Faith's kicks and punches came so rapidly that the bag hung at an angle from its hook, almost fifteen degrees from perpendicular to the ceiling.

"Try not to hit any studs when you knock the bag through the wall, Faith," Xander said. "It's structural."

Faith snarled at him, but didn't let up on the bag at all.

Xander wandered into the weapons room and pulled a katana from the wall. He turned it over in his hands, examined the craftsmanship of the blade, where it met the hilt and the small crosspiece. He remembered the final battle in Sunnydale, over a year ago, the swords they used to fight that day, the last day he saw Anya.

There was no service for her, specifically her, just one for all the fallen: close friends, acquaintances, and nameless unknowns lumped together. When news came that Spike was still alive, or alive again or not alive again or whatever the proper term was, others were surprised Buffy chose to stay away from him. Xander understood, though. Were he to find Anya, not dead as he previously thought, there was a good chance he would do the same thing. Leave her alone, allow her to live the life she should've had the first time, free of the death and gloom which followed him.

Death and gloom he wanted to visit on others, right now.

He put the katana back up on the wall and walked out to the main room. Rona and Janet walked out to the sparring mat at the same time.

"What the hell are we doing?" Xander asked. Everyone stopped, except Faith, and looked at him. "We were attacked. We should retaliate."

"It's your night off," Robin said. "And who are you going to retaliate against? We don't even know who did it."

Faith threw one last hard punch and caught the bag. "One vamp or another, don't make much difference to me tonight," she said. Rona and Janet echoed their agreement.

Robin stood up. "If you all want to go out, it's not like I can stop you. I think it's foolhardy, though."

Xander shrugged. "Might be better for Katharine than just sitting around."

Janet and Rona immediately started taking off their protective gear. Faith clapped Xander on the shoulder as she walked by; he staggered a step, but she didn't seem to notice. "Let's go get pip, yo," she said.

Faith stepped around Robin and started up the stairs. Xander waited for Rona and Janet to finish with their pads. They headed upstairs after Faith, and Robin followed.

"You coming, too, Wood?" Xander asked. "Thought it was foolhardy."

"It is," Robin said. "I'm just going to make sure Katharine realizes she doesn't have to go."

"Fair enough," Xander said.

:#:

Katharine knocked on Giles' door and stuck her head inside. He looked up from his journal as she entered, his eyes focused on her over his glasses.

"Oh, hey, sorry," Katharine said. "I didn't realize you were still here, you're so quiet. Thought I was here all alone."

Giles shrugged. "Yes, well, writing is not commonly a loud exercise."

Katharine paused as she was about to sit down across from him. "TouchÃ©," she said softly. She straightened and turned to walk to the door.

"Katharine, I apologize," Giles said. He indicated the seat in front of his desk. "I'm writing of the events of last night. I'm afraid it has put me in a foul humor. I -- your company would be appreciated."

Katharine smiled. She faced the door, so Giles couldn't see it; she was safe. As she turned, she forced her face to a neutral expression. "Thank you," she said, and sat down.

Silence. Awkward silence.

Finally, Giles spoke. "How are you holding up?"

She stared at him for a second. "What happens when a Slayer becomes a vampire?" she blurted out. Giles removed his glasses, and she continued, more calmly, "I mean, this can't be the first time this has ever happened."

"We don't know that it's happened."

Katharine scoffed. "Please."

Giles took a deep breath and polished his glasses. "Yes, you are correct. There are several recorded instances of Slayers being turned."

"And?" Katharine waited only a moment. "What? Do we have some sort of uber-vamp running around with my sister's face?"

Giles put his glasses on and stared her directly in the eyes. She could see he was getting angry.

"These are pertinent questions, Rupert," she said, "and nobody's asking them. If it's because of me, well, screw that. I'm a rip the bandage off type. Get it done quick."

"Fine." Giles looked away and closed his eyes. "The strength of a Slayer -- as well as that of a vampire -- is not physical, but rather mystical. The only thing the human and the vampire have in common is the body, a shell, if you will. She will have the strength of a vampire, not a Slayer."

Katharine nodded, and thought for a moment. "But she'll have Aud's memories."

"Yes. Memories are both physical and ephemeral, things of both the brain and the soul. The demon reanimates the brain, and thus the memories come with it."

"So she'll remember me, know I'm a Slayer."

"She will remember everything, Katharine. All that your sister knew."

Katharine nodded, and smiled sadly. "At least you're past that 'she's not a vampire' part."

Giles sighed. "Quite." He indicated his open journal with a wave of his hand. "Now, I'm sorry, but I really need to--"

Katharine stood. "Of course. I'm sorry to intrude."

Giles said nothing more, and she left.

:#:

Xander -- with Robin, Faith, Janet, and Rona behind him -- knocked on Katharine's door ten minutes later. "Katharine," Xander called out. "We're going to go out on patrol. You interested?"

"You donâ�™t have to go," Robin called out. "They're going because they want to. It's purely voluntary."

"But you know kickin' vamp ass ain't the same without you, K-dogg," Faith called out.

No response came from Katharine's room.

Xander turned around and looked at the others. "Where is she?" he said. They all shrugged.

Xander pushed past and knocked on the door to Giles' office. "Yo, Giles! You know where Katharine is?"

After a moment, Giles opened the door. He looked out at the others and raised an eyebrow. "Xander. Are you sure that going out tonight is wise?"

"Nope." Xander smiled mirthlessly. "Now ask if that's going to stop me."

Giles sighed. "I spoke with her not ten minutes ago. She should be in her room."

"She's not responding."

"Well, gee, Xander, I wonder why."

Xander glared at Giles for a moment, then walked back over to Katharine's door again. He knocked and said, "Look, Kat, if you don't want to go, that's fine, but at least say something."

Still, nothing came from behind the door.

Xander tried the knob, but the door was locked. "Katharine!" he shouted. "I'm your Watcher! Now either say something, or unlock and open the door, or I'm going to kick it open!"

"Xander!" Robin said. "Calm down!"

Robin put his hand on Xander's shoulder. Xander shrugged it off roughly and turned to face him. "Keep your hands off me," Xander snarled.

"You need to calm down," Robin said, his voice just as soft and just as intense.

"My Slayer, Robin, my rules," Xander said. "You need to just back off."

"I don't think I do," Robin said.

Faith stepped between them and kicked open the door to Katharine's bedroom. Both Watchers jumped at the sudden movement and sound.

"There," Faith said. "Now that's settled." She walked past them and into the bedroom. "Oh, and speaking from experience, boys," she said over her shoulder. "They're the same size."

Rona and Janet snickered as they walked past. Xander glared at Robin for a moment; his temper was deflected, but not sated. He turned and entered Katharine's room without a word.

The room was totally empty.

"What -- where is she?" Xander said.

"Gone," Faith said. She pointed to a pair of envelopes which rested against the lamp on top of the nightstand. One was addressed to Xander, the other to Giles. "Unless that ain't a good-bye letter, I mean."

Xander rushed over to the nightstand and grabbed the envelope addressed to him. He ripped it open and read it quickly, then cursed. "She had a Slayer dream, and she's gone after Audrey," he said. He cursed again, and punched the wall, a hard, quick punch which dented the sheetrock. "She told me she didn't care, she told me right to my face that she wasn't gonna go after her sister, and I believed her!"

"She's only been gone, at most, ten minutes," Janet said softly. "We can find her, Harris."

Robin spoke softly, all the anger from before gone. "She's right, Xander. We'll find her."

Xander nodded and pulled out his cell phone. "You're right. We will."

-:-


	17. Engagement

**Chapter Seventeen**  
**_Engagement_**

Willow sat alone in her office. There wasn't a whole lot of choice on the matter of company, though; she had several books open in front of her on the desk, along with her laptop, the thirty-inch widescreen HD monitor for her G5, and the Slayer's Scythe. The floor was covered with books, loose-leaf sheets of paper she made notes on and then discarded, and more books. Quite simply, there was no room for anyone else, not without serious rearrangement.

She worked on the problem of locating the new Slayers whenever she had free time. Not that she ever made any progress.

She studied different forms of locator spells, different ways to combine the essence of human and demon to increase strength, and anything else she could possibly think of that might deal with the creation and make-up of Slayers. Maybe if she understood them better, she would have an easier time finding them. Maybe.

Her cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID, and grinned. A nice distraction from the frustrations of the spells, she thought. She flipped the cell open and answered, "Hey, Xander. What's up?"

"Katharine's gone after Cole, the vamp who got Audrey," Xander said. Willow jerked up straight in her seat. "She's got ten, maybe fifteen minutes on us. Need you to get one of your locator spells ready for us, we'll be over as soon as we can."

"What? How'd she--"

"No time, Will," Xander cut her off. "Just get the spell ready."

"No problem, I'm right on it," Willow said. She had all the necessary supplies in the basement. "Donâ�™t forget to bring something of hers."

"Already got it. See you soon." Xander hung up, and Willow did the same.

:#:

Xander wanted to force his way into the office, but Willow quickly nixed that idea. As she cast the locator spell, Giles called the two groups out on patrol from the living room, and everyone else pressed themselves as tightly as possible into the doorway to the office.

"Found her," Willow said.

Xander tried to push forward into the office. Willow thrust up a hand. "Stay back, Xander!" she shouted. "I swear, I'm gonna... turn you into a newt!"

"He'll get better," Giles called out. Everyone in the doorway turned and looked at Giles, who shrugged and turned his back on them to concentrate on the phone.

Willow not-so-subtly cleared her throat, and they turned back to her. "Okay, she's just getting to the warehouse district now. Assuming she has no idea we're onto her, she'll probably take her time to find the place and get in, so if we're lucky we should be able to catch up to her before she gets into trouble."

"If we're lucky," Xander said. His voice made it clear this was a luxury he doubted they'd have.

"Closest group is over forty-five minutes away," Giles said, "and appreciated my Monty Python knowledge far more than you ungrateful louts did."

"Unless you've got a Holy Hand Grenade, Giles, I donâ�™t really give a rat's ass about Monty Python," Xander snapped.

Willow reached out and grabbed her desk for support; she felt like her world was coming unglued. _Giles_ was making jokes to relieve tension during a crisis, and _Xander_ was snipping at him for it.

Xander took a deep breath. "Sorry, Giles. That was out of line." Giles graciously nodded his acceptance of the apology. "All right, we're the closest, so we're going after her. We'll get weapons and I'll drive." The Slayers all nodded. "Giles, if you could hit the books, see if you can find anything on those two vamps Katharine mentioned, that would be great. Willow, keep on that locator spell and give us directions on the fly, I want to be en route before she finds what she's looking for. Robin--"

"I'm going with you," Robin said.

"Into the field with the Slayers?" Xander said. "Thought that was against the rules."

Robin shook his head. "I got your back, Harris. If you thought it was gonna be any other way, I guess you don't know me at all."

Xander grinned. "Thanks," he said, and shook hands with Robin.

"Oh my God, they're totally gonna make out," Rona said. "Janet, quick, dollar bills!"

Everyone laughed, except Robin and Xander, who both looked embarrassed. Janet said, "Harris, man, you steal Faith's boyfriend and she's gonna be pissed off!"

Xander glared at Janet. "Come on, joker, let's go," he said, and pushed past everyone. "Call when you got something, Will."

"Faith!" Willow said. Faith stopped, and Willow grabbed the Scythe from her desk and tossed it to her. Faith caught it easily, and Willow could see her posture change as the power flowed into her. "Get one for me."

Faith saluted with the Scythe's blade. "You got it, Red."

:#:

"No swords, no knives," Xander said as his Slayers lead the way down to the basement. "Just stakes and crossbows. If it can't kill a vamp, leave it."

Rona opened the weapons closet and started handing back crossbows to everyone else.

"Take two each," Robin said. "Once we're in there, I doubt we'll have much time to reload."

Rona passed the last crossbows out and closed the door. All five of them wore two crossbows slung over their shoulders, one over the right and one over the left, and a belt of stakes. "Let's move," she said.

"We'll take my truck," Xander said as they ran up the stairs. "Slayers in the bed so we can get out faster."

:#:

Willow watched as the dot on the map moved around: Katharine was still driving. She had the letter Katharine wrote Xander with her, and she moved back and forth between the two.

Giles stared at the letter in his hands, the one Katharine wrote him. Willow wondered about that, why she would write a letter to Giles. Perhaps it was because he was her sister's Watcher, but she really didn't know.

It troubled her that these girls were Slayers because of a spell she cast, but she barely knew anything about them -- or any of the newer Slayers, really, with the obvious exception of Kennedy. She knew their names, basic facts like age and city of birth, but her knowledge was clinical, factual, not personal. She kept her distance from the Slayers.

Fact was, seeing them made her feel guilty. It was her fault there were so many of them around in the world, unfound, probably frightened and confused because of the newfound strength and dreams in their lives. It was her fault she couldn't find them.

The dot still moved on the map at driving speed.

"Shouldn't you be researching?" she asked Giles. "Doing your book thing, looking for those vamps?"

Giles sighed. "We have no such books, Willow," he said softly. "All the research on existing vampires is either in the private collections of retired Watchers -- pompous prats like Windham-Price whom I have no intention of allowing near a Slayer, ever -- or spread with the ashes of the Council headquarters itself."

"You're pretty protective of the girls, aren't you?"

Giles hesitated before he answered. "I suppose I am." He folded up the letter and stared at the small rectangle in his hands. "It reads like a suicide note," he whispered.

"I don't think she meant for us to find these tonight," Willow said. "So of course it's going to read that way. She doesn't need a letter when she comes back early this morning before we wake up."

Giles nodded and removed his glasses. "Of course," he said. Willow could tell he wasn't convinced. She wondered what his letter said that Xander's didn't.

She looked down at the map; the dot had stopped at the outside edge of a warehouse perimeter, and settled down to indicate she had stopped for a few minutes.

"Giles, phone! She's stopped!"

:#:

Katharine turned off her car and looked at the warehouse through the fence. The gate was open, which seemed strange to her. The warehouse was not very close to the water, which probably meant it wasn't worth too much, and appeared to be somewhat rusted and worn down. The large bay doors went all the way down to the ground level instead of having a raised platform to load a trailer. The windows near the top of the building were boarded shut or painted black.

She knew this was the building from her dream. Slayer instinct, finally kicking in for her. About time, she felt.

She got out of the car. The open gate was too obvious an invitation; she planned to jump the fence where the lighting was dimmest and approach the warehouse from the side. She stuffed her knife and two stakes into her belt. She remembered Faith's lessons, how a knife was virtually useless when fighting vampires and actually a liability because the vampire could use it to kill a Slayer, but she didn't care. She felt more comfortable with the knife.

She hid her keys in the wheel well of the car -- she didn't care for the weapons advice of her Senior Slayer, but she agreed with the bit about needless items making noise -- and easily scaled the fence, despite barbed wire.

Time to go to work.

:#:

Robin navigated as Xander drove his truck as fast as he could without risking a speeding ticket. The three Slayers sat in the truck bed, faces grim as the wind blew their hair. They were all ready to fight.

Xander's cell phone rang. He grabbed it from the center console and quickly snapped it open. "Xander."

"She stopped," Willow said. "She's--"

"Hold on, tell Robin," Xander said. He handed the phone to Robin.

"Uh-huh," Robin said. He listened for a moment, then made a quick circle on his map with a pen. "Stopped just inside the north edge of the warehouse, by the bay doors. Got it. We're about three minutes out. Uh-huh."

Robin held the phone up to Xander's ear. "Bring her back, Xander," Willow said.

"Will do, Will," Xander said. Robin rolled his eyes and took the phone away.

They drove for a few minutes, and then the warehouse came into view down the street. Xander stopped the truck and looked at it for a moment.

"That the north bay doors Willow mentioned?" he asked.

"That's them," Robin said.

Xander nodded. "Open up that back window and get Faith -- change of plans."

:#:

Katharine could feel the vampires around her, even though she couldn't see them. She eased her stake from her belt as she crept through the maze-like floor of the warehouse. She was pretty sure, almost positive, that the vamps knew she was there -- the only reason for her not to see any so far was because they were hiding, and the only reason to hide was because they had a plan which called for her to go deeper into the warehouse.

All of which made no difference to her. She was going to go on no matter what; besides, she figured the easiest way to deal with a trap was to spring it and then wreck it.

The light inside the warehouse was very dim, barely enough for her to see by. Another disadvantage for her, she noted, which just further convinced her that they were waiting for her. She shrugged off her worries and concerns and continued through the warehouse warily, all her senses open and her reflexes completely on edge. She stopped thinking about an attack and let her Slayer instinct take over, ready for a fight, ready for whatever they had planned.

She turned a corner and saw Audrey, ten feet away, slumped in a chair. Her ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, and her hands were behind her back. Her head lolled onto her right shoulder. Her hair spilled over her face and neck and shoulders. Her throat was cut, and blood stained her shirt and the floor around her.

Katharine stood there for almost a minute and just stared at her sister's body.

This wasn't what she expected, not at all. Of all the scenarios she played out in her head, everything she prepared for -- a risen vampire, a vicious battle against a demon with her sister's face, fighting against the vampires who took Audrey -- she never gave thought to finding Audrey murdered. It made no sense; why take her just to kill her? Was it Katharine they were after, and her sister was just bait?

She walked up to Audrey, slowly, and put her stake back in her belt.

"Audrey," Katharine whispered. She reached out and gently brushed her sister's hair away from her face, felt the cold skin of her temple. It all hit her then: her sister was dead, gone, for real this time. There was no sudden spell or miracle to save her. Katharine realized she expected that, to some extent, that after Audrey's accident a year ago and the Slayer spell which healed her, she expected her sister to survive again. But here she was, in front of her, dead and cold. Audrey wasn't going to survive; it was already too late for that. Time was up.

Katharine put her hands on Audrey's face and kissed her softly on the forehead. She tried to hold back tears, but they came anyway; she fought for control, held on to it, but barely.

"God, Audrey," she whispered. She pulled Audrey close against her chest and neck, and held her tightly. "I'm so sorry! I had a dream last night, I should have come for you then, not now, I'm so sorry I waited! I just, I don't know, God, I just wanted you to be safe and I thought you'd get out of it somehow like you did with the accident! And now you're dead, and I had that Slayer dream and I just ignored it and I'm the worst Slayer ever and I'm such a horrible sister--"

Audrey snickered.

Katharine let go and jumped back as Audrey looked up at her and laughed. Her sister was dead, she felt it, but she stood up and pulled her hands from behind the chair -- slip knots. Audrey stepped away from the chair, and Katharine took another step back.

"Audrey--"

"I'm so sorry!" Audrey mocked. Her voice was raspy, not at all like how she sounded when she was alive.

Katharine felt her control slip even further; she barely held on as she watched her sister laugh and rub her neck.

"You really a horrible sister, you know," Audrey said. "Pathetic. And as a Slayer--"

Katharine felt someone grab her knife from her belt, from behind her, and before she could react Cole stepped to her left side and slashed that hamstring--

"--you're definitely the worst ever."

The knife cut deep, and Katharine fell as her hamstring was severed. Audrey rushed forward and grabbed her by the jaw; her hand squeezed hard, and Katharine felt the bone close to breaking.

"The 'I had a dream' bit was touching, though, if a bit trite," Audrey said, and shoved her face-down into the cement floor. Katharine collapsed, helpless, as she lost control and sobbed, powerless to do anything against her sister.

Cole walked over to the chair and picked up some of the rope. He turned to Audrey and grinned. "So. Now what?" he asked.

"We got company!" Donner yelled from above.

Cole looked up at the overhead catwalk where Donner stood. "What is it?" he said.

"Three girls just jumped out of the back of a truck and passed the gate," Donner said. "Faith Covington, Janet Unger, and Rona Davies. The Slayer's got backup."

Cole glanced over at Katharine; the Slayer was on the floor, face-down where Audrey threw her, crying. She was out for the fight, he could tell. Audrey's ruse had worked, and completely broken her sister. Quite an interesting find.

"No Watcher?" Cole asked Donner.

"Probably in the truck," Donner said.

"Incoming!" another vampire shouted from the floor, behind Cole. He turned and saw the vampire running as fast as he could from the big bay door near them--

And then Harris's big truck plowed through the bay door and into the warehouse, ran into several of the massive stacks of boxes and pallets and other assorted storage units. Cole was once again impressed by Harris's ability to create chaos and confusion, even as he dodged falling debris and sharp, broken wood.

-:-


	18. The Fires Off Lake Erie

**Chapter Eighteen**  
**_The Fires Off Lake Erie_**

Faith, Rona, and Janet ran through the gate at a full sprint. Xander's plan -- to get in and create confusion by crashing the truck into the bay door -- was insane, but no one could think of any better way to take the attack to the vampires. His calm, detached reassurance, "The truck has airbags," wasn't very reassuring.

"Follow the truck straight in, hard and fast," Faith told the other Slayers as they ran. "I'll go high, see if I can spot either of our girls and maybe get them out, and play sniper if possible."

Janet and Rona just saved their breath and ran.

:#:

Xander had heard that an airbag's impact could be quite painful. Like most everything, though, he found that it was relative. One a scale of one to ten -- with ten being punched in the face by a Slayer, and one being kissed in the face by a Slayer -- he rated it about a four. Certainly not anywhere near as painful as being hit by a vampire, or even a padded sparring session with one of his Slayers.

Which was not to say that he wouldn't have a nice black eye or two the next day.

The airbags deflated, and he looked over at Robin. He looked just as stunned as Xander felt, but ultimately fine.

"That sure put a roller coaster to shame," Xander said.

Robin rolled his eyes and unbuckled his seatbelt -- and a vampire opened the car door and grabbed him by the shirt. The vamp turned and threw Robin out of the car and then jerked forward. Xander saw a crossbow bolt in its back before it exploded to dust.

Xander unbuckled his seatbelt and quickly reached around to the back seat, where Robin stowed the crossbows before the crash. He grabbed one and spun around just as the driver's side door was yanked open by another vampire.

Xander fired as the door opened, but the bolt struck the vampire in the left shoulder. The vamp's arm fell limp, and it snarled in pain. Xander grabbed a stake from his belt as the vamp reached inside the cab and grabbed him by the shirt, just as the other vamp did to Robin. It yanked him out of the truck, and Xander used his momentum to drive his stake home into the vamp's unprotected left side. The vampire screeched and turned to dust, but Xander still went flying several feet before he crashed awkwardly to the ground and rolled.

He rose quickly to his knees and saw that he was at the feet of a plainly-dressed young man with shaggy, fashionably-tousled dark hair. He looked to be about Xander's age, maybe an inch taller but of a much slighter build. He looked down at Xander calmly, with a slight smile on his face.

"Xander Harris," he said. His voice was soft and not very deep, but strong all the same. A dangerous voice, Xander realized immediately. "We'll avoid the dropping in puns, yes? I'm Cole."

Xander stiffened. He stayed low, on his knees but with his feet tucked back so he was in more of a defensive crouch than a supplicate position. He looked around the vampire, saw Audrey standing behind him and slightly off to the side, her throat slit and obviously risen as a vampire, and Katharine on the ground behind her, bleeding and sobbing.

"Katharine!" he said. She didn't move or respond.

"She's been fairly unresponsive since just after she got here," Cole said. "Perhaps she's just not cut out for all of this; not like you, of course."

Xander sprung up with no warning, his stake in hand and pointed right at Cole's heart. The vampire stepped to the side easily and drove his elbow into Xander's fist; Xander cried out and dropped the stake, and cradled his right hand in his left.

Cole sighed, as if the attack was nothing more than an inconvenience. "I've been watching you for weeks, now," he said. Xander surreptitiously flexed his hand; his fingers were badly bruised, but he didn't think anything was broken. "And I'm a bit fascinated with you, to be honest. That last ill-advised attempt on my un-life aside, you're quite unpredictable. The thing with the flare guns, that was just inspired genius."

"I'm flattered," Xander said, "but despite what you might've read on bathroom stalls to the contrary, I'm straight."

Cole laughed. "I'm not hitting on you, trust me." He paused. "I don't come off as defensive, do I? It's not that I have a problem with homosexuality, it's just not for me."

"Oh, I understand," Xander said. "I feel about the same way."

"That's good." Cole nodded. "One tries to be as even-minded about things like that as possible, you know." He sounded truly concerned about how Xander perceived him.

Xander felt uncomfortable, but realized that stalling was the best tactic he had now, and Cole seemed keen to talk. "Uh, yeah. You're definitely all enlightened." Xander indicated their surroundings. "Warehouse full of potential stakes, seems like a bad place for a vamp hangout."

Cole grinned, and this time, there was nothing amicable about it. "Not when there's no one to wield them."

:#:

Faith hopped down to the catwalk from a window and landed as softly as she could. The noises of the fighting below her drowned out her landing well enough, she hoped.

She ran down the catwalk, looking for a good vantage point to see the action down on the floor. Xander's truck had knocked a lot of the crates around on the floor and created a barrier of sorts, breaking the fight into two separate fights.

Robin, Janet, and Rona fought against a bunch of vampires on the passenger's side of the truck. They looked to be outnumbered a little more than two-to-one, but Robin held his own and the two Slayers fought with an aggressive fury that promised the vamps wouldn't be long for this world. Faith felt confident they were okay over there.

On the other side of the truck, she saw Xander and Katharine. They were obviously in trouble: Xander stood in front of a male vampire, unarmed, with one hand held in the other, and Katharine was on the ground, bleeding badly from her leg, with her sister poised over her in full vamp game-face.

Faith swore under her breath and swung her crossbows off her shoulders. She took a knee to get a more steady base -- a crossbow was not the most accurate long-distance weapon, a longbow would be much better for the situation -- and put the second crossbow down beside her, where she could quickly pick it up. She kept the Scythe in her left hand, she didn't really know why but it felt like the right thing to do.

She held the crossbow in her right hand, braced against her shoulder and balanced on her left forearm, and took aim on Audrey. She hesitated for a moment, then shifted her aim to the male vampire right in front of Xander. It wasn't that she couldn't shoot Audrey, she told herself; it just made more sense to kill the vampire by Xander, since he was in a better position to fight than Katharine was. With Xander free, he could hold off Audrey until either Katharine got up or another Slayer made it over there.

Unless Xander couldn't fight a vampire who had the face of a friend. Faith knew about Audrey's crush on him, but she had no idea if he knew. Either way, she didn't know how he'd react in a fight against the former Slayer. She shifted her crossbow again to Audrey's back and took a deep breath.

She heard running footsteps to her right and looked over just in time to see a large steel pole slam into her shoulder and chest. Both she and the crossbow went flying along the catwalk. She managed to keep hold of the Scythe -- or it kept hold of her, she wasn't really sure. She landed against the railing and tumbled, luckily, onto the catwalk rather than over onto the warehouse floor.

She looked up and saw a huge vampire, at least four inches over six feet, advancing on her. "You know, killing a Slayer used to mean something," he said, "until they bastardized the line and got all you ignorant amateurs."

He swung the steel pole -- a concrete breaker, Faith recognized; twenty pounds of solid steel -- and Faith raised the Scythe to block. She caught the pole between the haft and the blade and delivered a front snap kick to the vampire's sternum, a killing blow to a human but one that merely knocked the vampire back a few feet. He twisted the concrete breaker and slid it free of the Scythe.

"Bitch, I am the real deal," Faith said, "old-school calling and all. So now who's ignorant?"

The vampire cocked his head to the side and looked at her for a second, and his whole face seemed to light up. "Faith," he said.

Faith held her arms out to the side a little. "Come on. You didn't think this body belonged to anyone else, did you?" she said.

Donner grinned. "All I ever see is the neck," he said, and attacked.

:#:

Cole heard a clatter from above. He stepped to the side so he could keep Harris in his field of vision as he looked up to the sound. A single crossbow fell from the catwalk above and clattered onto a pile of broken crates.

Cole grinned and turned to Xander.

"Watchers have an impossible job, you know," he said, "and I mean that literally. A Slayer always dies. You can't circumvent that, you can just delay it -- or die yourself before it happens, I suppose." Xander's eyes flicked over to Katharine and Audrey; briefly, but not so fast that Cole missed it. "You tried to tip the balance, but now you just have more Slayers to fail, to get killed."

Cole walked around beside Xander, to his left, so he was to one side and the twins were on the other side. Xander looked straight forward, his attention divided between the two. "You're still young. Do you like to learn new things? I do."

Audrey stepped forward and grabbed Katharine by the hair. Xander jumped forward, but before he could take more than a step Cole grabbed him from behind and put him into a half-nelson headlock. Xander struggled, but couldn't move as Audrey sunk her teeth into Katharine's neck from behind and started to drink.

Katharine's eyes opened in shock, but Xander could tell she couldn't see him. Audrey drank slowly, to drag out the process as long as she could; Xander could see the struggle to control the blood lust on her face.

"Have you ever had a Slayer, Harris?" Cole whispered in his ear as Audrey drank. "Felt the way those legs just wrap around you and pull you deeper and deeper? She wanted to give you that, Harris, all of that and anything else. The girl loved you, and you let her die. And now the demon you let her become, she's going to take another of your Slayers, a girl who trusted you to keep her safe and teach her how to survive." Cole chuckled silently; Harris could feel the vibrations where his chest pressed against the Watcher's back, he knew. "Who knew that one person could screw up so much in such a short time?"

Even right up against him, even with super-sensitive vampire hearing, Cole could barely hear Harris whisper, "I should've known."

As Cole and Harris watched, Audrey pulled herself away from Katharine's neck while the Slayer was still alive, spun her around, and shoved her mouth against her own slit throat to drink.

:#:

Over a year earlier, Faith had fought with the Scythe in the depths of the Sunnydale Hellmouth. She remembered the feel of the weapon in her hands, the way it cut through her enemies, the way she felt faster and stronger with it in her hands.

Something was wrong. She still felt that way, felt the strength flow through her. And yet the vampire -- just a normal vampire, probably not even a full century old, certainly not an uber-vamp of any kind -- still stood in front of her, undusted.

That wasn't right, she knew.

He looked just as frustrated that she wasn't yet dead as she felt about his continued survival, and rushed her with a snarl. She twisted at the last moment and used his momentum against him, tossed him hard into the railing. The top bar hit him low, barely above his waist, and she pressed him hard. He slid down into a crouch, the bar still against his back, and shoved forward hard against her. Her balance was bad, over-extended high from pushing him, and she slammed back against the opposite railing hard enough to dent the top bar and maybe crack one of her ribs.

The vamp swung his weapon at her, shoulder height, and she leaned back and caught it with the Scythe. The bar slipped some more, loosened by her impact, and the vampire lurched forward at her as the entire catwalk swayed.

The vamp crashed hard into her, and his height and momentum propelled the both of them over the weakened railing.

:#:

She tried to resist. Her sister -- no, the vamp who stole her sister's body -- pushed her mouth up against the slit throat, and Katharine tried desperately to resist, brought all of her willpower to bear, but when the blood touched her lips she bit down and swallowed.

She hated herself for the weakness, even as her throat worked and more of the undead thing's blood entered her body.

Katharine remembered training with her fellow Slayers -- how Rona and Janet always joked around with one another and with her, and how Faith taught her about the code they used for hopeless situations. Them first, then you, Faith told her. Kill the humans rather than let the vamps turn them, then kill yourself. Katharine thought it was another joke, and the dead serious expressions on Janet's face and Rona's face caught her by surprise.

You can't resist, Faith said. You might even want to, but you won't be able to. Katharine hadn't believed her; after all, how could she know? No vamp ever made Faith drink. It was ridiculous.

She still had a bit of strength left, as Audrey held her by the neck and shoulder. Her left leg was useless, but her right was strong and whole, and her arms were fine. She tried to push away, but Audrey held her tight and was stronger. Even if she could push away, Katharine realized, she couldn't stop drinking -- she would just pull Audrey with her as she backed away.

The biggest act of defiance she could come up with was to keep her eyes open. She was going to die, her body was going to be possessed by a demon, and it was all her stupid stubbornness that was going to do it -- but she would face her fate like a true Slayer, eyes open and unafraid. Just like she knew Faith, Janet, and Rona would.

Suddenly, two bodies dropped into the pile of broken and overturned crates to her right. She felt Audrey's head jerk a little, but the vamp couldn't move much with Katharine fastened to her neck. Katharine could see what happened, though: Faith and another vampire fell from somewhere above, breaking a good number of crates with the fall. The vampire turned to dust, staked by a piece of broken crate--

--and Katharine noticed a chest-high piece broken off behind Audrey.

She couldn't pull away, but she still had strength enough in one leg to shove Audrey backwards. She continued to swallow Audrey's blood even as she tumbled backwards and the wood pierced her sister's heart. Audrey yanked her away from her neck by the hair and looked at her. "You b--" she said, and turned to dust.

The last of her strength gone, Katharine collapsed to the floor and waited to die.

:#:

Xander watched as Katharine drank from her sister's body, helpless in Cole's arms -- not that he would be any more help out of the vampire's hold, he thought bitterly. Just another name to add to the list of people he's failed: Katharine Beckford.

He looked up at the catwalk and saw another name on the list, Faith, slammed up against the metal railing hard enough to bend it. The scuffle continued, but Xander couldn't make out what went on -- until both Faith and the vampire both pitched over the railing and fell, still struggling against one another, nearly thirty feet into a stack of crates just behind Audrey and Katharine. Xander heard the vampire's scream intensify, then abruptly cut off, staked by the wooden crates in the fall.

Cole's grip on Xander tightened as the Slayer and vampire hit, but Audrey hadn't seen it coming and turned to look. Katharine shoved her backwards with just her one good leg, and drove the vampire into a chest-high wooden protrusion even as she still drank.

This surprise made Cole's grip loosen in shock.

Xander reacted immediately. He drove his heel down onto the inside part of Cole's ankle, and felt the shock of a snapping joint all the way up to his hip. Cole screamed. Xander spun and drove the point of his elbow right into the vampire's temple, and Cole dropped hard to the ground.

Xander didn't wait to see if he scored a lucky knock-out blow; either way, his stakes and crossbows were all gone, so he had no way to destroy him if Cole was indeed unconscious. Xander ran over to where Katharine sprawled on the ground, bleeding from her neck and leg, and slid to his knees beside her. He gently rolled her over and her eyelids fluttered open, just as Faith climbed out from the pile of broken crates she fell into, the Scythe in her hand.

Slayers were definitely tougher than they had a right to be, Xander thought.

"Is she--" Faith said. Xander nodded, and she scrambled over and knelt across from Xander, on Katharine's left.

"Yeah, she's right here, aren't you?" Xander said softly to Katharine. He gently lifted her up, his left hand behind her head and his right arm across her chest and under her shoulder.

His spine went cold as he realized her hair and neck was soaked in blood -- too much blood.

"I got her," Katharine whispered. Xander couldn't even hear her, her voice was so soft; he could only read her lips.

"Yeah, you did good," he said. He smiled, somehow. He wasn't sure how. He just did, for her.

"Got me, too," Katharine said. "You gotta burn me."

"What? No, Kat, you're--"

"S'ok," Katharine said. She turned her head a little, looked at Faith. "You were right, can't resist drinking. But I used that."

Faith nodded. "You did great, Lite Beer," she said, her voice unsteady.

"Burn the body, don't let them take it," Katharine whispered.

And then she died in Xander's arms.

He felt her go limp, the weight of her head fully settle into his hand, and he gently let her back down to the ground again. Faith reached out to close Katharine's eyes just as Xander did, and their hands touched just in front of her face.

Xander jerked his hand back. "Sorry, I--"

Faith reached out and grabbed his hand. Xander looked up at her, and she shook her head softly. Xander sighed, looked back down at Katharine, and together, hands entwined, Watcher and Slayer reached out to close Katharine's eyes.

They stayed there, heads bowed over Katharine's body, hands clasped together over her chest. They leaned forward together, her forehead on his right shoulder, and he reached up with his right hand and held her against him. Neither cried.

:#:

Cole watched Katharine die from the shadows, away from both the truck and the body. His ankle was completely wrecked -- it would heal fine, but not anytime soon -- and his allies were dust. Not a good time to attack.

He considered whether to stay and watch the end of it all, or to take off while everyone was distracted. If any of the Slayers found him in his condition, he wouldn't last long at all; in fact, it was doubtful that he could face down a trained Watcher.

None of the coming events were worth his life to see. As quietly as he could, Cole slipped away.

:#:

Robin, Janet, and Rona triple-teamed the last vampire on their side of the divide Xander's truck had created. It didn't last long; Rona drove her stake home at the same time Janet delivered a roundhouse kick to the back of its head.

Robin looked around quickly and saw the coast was clear. "We gotta get to the others," he said.

He raced over to the truck and climbed through the cab. Faith and Xander held each other above a body on the ground -- Katharine, he thought, although it was hard to see her because her feet pointed toward him. It wasn't a very optimistic view.

Rona poked him in the back, and Robin scrambled out of the truck's cab. He looked around the area, noticed the stake Xander dropped over by the truck's back tire, but there were no vamps around anywhere. Unless they planned a surprise counter-attack, the battle was done for the night.

"Yo, you guys okay?" Rona asked as she climbed out of the truck.

Faith and Xander jerked their heads up and turned to look at them. Faith looked at Robin and her eyes snapped wide open, and she jumped back away from Xander.

Robin felt his heart lurch as it all fell together for him: the awkward strangeness, the tension between him and Faith and Xander in all permutations. All of that, the stress on the relationship and everything, he realized he could trace it all back to the morning after Faith and Xander hid out together from the vampires.

He knew the realization showed on his face. Faith could see it, he knew. She opened her mouth and reached out to him slightly, but then let her hand drop and looked away.

"Oh my God -- Katharine," Janet said quietly.

Robin turned and watched the two young Slayers, neither even eighteen yet, slowly make their way over to Katharine's body. Faith stood as they got close to the body and blocked their path. "She got 'em," Faith said. "She was great."

Rona and Janet both nodded. Rona crossed herself and said something softly, too softly for Robin to pick up.

He looked at Xander, still on his knees by Katharine's body. As much as Robin hated him at that moment, he couldn't help but think of his words to Faith months ago: "It's hard being a Watcher, because you know that one of your Slayers will die. Even with the greater numbers, it's inevitable. Or maybe I'll die, as a Watcher -- and I gotta be honest with you, Faith. I hope that's the case with Xander. I hate it, but I really hope he dies first, because I can't even imagine how much losing a Slayer is gonna devastate him."

He could already tell that he was right.

:#:

"Burn me."

Katharine's voice echoed in Xander's head. He couldn't get past it all, even when Robin and his other Slayers found them. He'd failed, again. When she needed him most, he left her side, and now she was dead. A familiar refrain, but not one made any easier with time.

She hadn't gotten a memorial, except within him. She hadn't gotten a service or a viewing or a wake, no commerce done in her name. Nothing, except his aching heart to remember her by.

Not this time.

He got up and walked over to the truck. Robin glared at him -- don't blame you, Xander thought -- as he unlocked the toolbox behind the cab and pulled out a bunch of rags and a can of paint thinner. He opened the can and tossed the cap into the back of the truck, soaked the rags, and tossed them all into the stacks of crates. He poured paint thinner all over the floor, and emptied the bottle in a tight circle around Katharine's body.

"What the hell are you doing?" Robin asked.

"Slayer's last request," Xander said. His voice came out deep and cold, even to his ears.

"Audrey made her drink before Katharine staked her," Faith said softly.

Xander walked over to Faith and held out his hand. "Lighter?"

Faith nodded, and pulled her silver Zippo from a pocket. She looked at it for a moment, then flipped it open, lit it, and dropped it down onto Katharine's body. The paint thinner caught quickly, and the flames spread across the floor to the wooden crates nearby as it began to engulf the dead Slayer.

Xander's hand dropped to his side. He looked down at Katharine's body and opened his mouth, but nothing came out. After a moment, as the flames spread more and more, he shook his head and followed the others out of the warehouse.

-:-


	19. What Dreams Come Tomorrow

_Author's Note: This is the final chapter of the story. I'm so glad you've gotten this far; I hope you've enjoyed the ride as much as I have enjoyed writing this. I've upped the rating to R, just because the last chapters were pretty violent and such. I've really learned a lot about both writing and fanfiction in general with this story; thanks for being patient with me. The sequel will start up by March at the very latest, and that's only if I decide to write something else (a Buffy/Batclan crossover bouncing in my brain) in the interim. _

_Peace and humptiness to all my readers.  
_

* * *

**Chapter Nineteen**  
**_What Dreams Come Tomorrow_**

They drove back to the house in Katharine's car, which they found just outside the warehouse fence. Morbid, but practical, considering Xander's truck was now in the middle of a huge fire.

Xander drove, and Robin sat shotgun. The Slayers piled into the back seat, although neither Rona nor Faith were big enough to make it much of a tight fit. No one said a word as they drove back to the others in their fallen friend's car.

Robin glanced over at Xander a few times. He could tell, just as he had predicted to Faith months ago, Xander was taking the death of his Slayer hard. Robin was torn -- part of him wanted to say something, to tell Xander that what happened to Katharine wasn't his fault, that unless he planned to drug, knock out, or tie down his Slayer she would've gone after her sister and the vampires who took her. Especially after the dream she had.

Another part of him didn't care. That part figured Xander deserved whatever guilt and self-loathing he could come up with, and then some more on top of that. That part wondered if Xander was screwing Katharine, too, or if it was just his girlfriend that Xander had sex with.

So Robin said nothing. He wasn't sure what words would come out if he did, and he wasn't sure which part of him he agreed with -- if, indeed, it wasn't both parts.

-:-

The numbness of shock wore off as Xander drove back to the house, slowly faded away to reveal anger and shame.

Failure, again. How he ever thought -- how Giles and Robin ever thought -- he would be able to keep these girls safe was beyond him. He was Xander Harris, son of Tony Harris, and that was all the reference they ever should've needed to kick him out on his ass and lock him away from Slayers for the rest of his life.

Xander could see Robin look over at him several times, out of the corner of his eye (right side, right side, good side), and he hoped like hell Robin didn't feel the need to open his mouth and make some sort of speech or something. Xander was not in the mood for clichÃ©s or platitudes or whatever mission-oriented tripe Robin would spew out. Robin was the only one who had yet to lose a Slayer; what the hell did he know about what Xander was going through?

He glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw Faith consoling Janet and Rona. The two younger Slayers had tears in their eyes, but not Faith. Of course not Faith. She was far too tough to cry over just some girl -- she hadn't even bothered to call Katharine by her real name, instead she used that stupid nickname crap she used with all the girls. The only thing that made Faith cry was Angel's death; she could cry over the loss of the stupid, brooding, evil vampire, but not a girl whose life and safety and training was in her hands.

Of course not. That wasn't tough.

Xander reached up and angled the mirror so he didn't have to see the girls in the back. It messed up his view of the road behind him, but at that moment, he didn't really much care if he got them all killed. It certainly wouldn't surprise him, and seemed a fitting end to the day.

-:-

Everyone was at Willow's house when they arrived. The other Slayer groups, all too far away from the warehouse to arrive in time to help, both quickly returned home after Giles called them to learn their position. So they sat around and waited, unable to do anything -- not an ideal state for five angry Slayers, one worried Watcher, and a stressed-out witch.

Xander's cell phone was still in his car, so he couldn't call in to tell Giles how things went.

Everyone jumped up when they arrived at Willow's house. No one spoke; they didn't have to. Robin, Rona, Faith, Janet, and then Xander entered through the front door, and the door closed behind him.

-:-

The fire raged unchecked at the warehouse for almost twenty minutes before someone alerted the fire department.

Cole bypassed the very simple security system in the warehouse when the vampires gathered there after the raid on the Slayer's house two nights earlier. The fire-response system was tied in with the security -- interesting, for a seldomly-used warehouse full of flammable materials, and probably a deliberate ploy to cash in on insurance money -- so even with the intense fire on the floor, the alarm never went off.

Contrary to action films, it takes a very specific set of circumstances for the gas tank of a vehicle to explode. However, it certainly didn't take much for the truck to catch fire, gasoline and all, and the fire spread quickly.

-:-

"I think we should all try to get some rest," Giles finally said.

They all sat around in Willow's living room, quiet and subdued. It was the first anyone spoke since they all returned from the warehouse.

"I'll drive you guys back to your place, Giles, since you all rode here with me," Xander said.

-:-

Faith and Robin entered their bedroom together after Xander dropped them off with Giles. Robin gently shut the door behind him as Faith sat on the edge of the bed.

Robin looked at Faith. She had a few cuts on her face from her fall, but nothing too serious. She'd pulled her hair out from a ponytail, and it fell down over her face as she looked down at the floor. She looked so small, her shoulders turned down and her body curling into itself.

He tried to be angry -- she cheated on him and lied to him, after all. It just wouldn't come. He was too tired and too emotionally drained for an argument, hurt, or guilt. He just felt numb, and a quiet resignation.

"I'll leave," Faith said quietly. "I'll find somewhere else to sleep tonight."

"With him?" Robin asked.

Maybe he could be a little angry, after all.

Faith looked up at him scornfully. "No, not with him, unless you think I'm passing out favors to both him and Andrew."

Chagrined, Robin shook his head. "No. I don't. I forgot he has a roommate."

"Yeah, well." Faith hesitated. "Figured I'd crash in Dawn's room. I -- I don't want to stay in the spare room here."

"No, I get that," Robin said. He wouldn't want to stay in Katharine's room, either.

Faith grabbed a duffel bag from the closet and tossed some clothes and personal items into it.

"What did I do wrong?" Robin asked.

Faith stopped, looked at him over her shoulder, confused. "What? When?"

"With you." He shook his head. "I treated you best as I could. I never lied to you or used--"

"Aw, hell, Robin--"

"No, I just don't get it!" Robin took a deep breath and calmed himself. Too drained to get mad, indeed, he though. "I don't understand what he has that I don't."

"It ain't you, Robin," Faith said.

"Then what is it about him?"

"It's not him."

"Well, it has to be something, you had sex with him--"

"You got the screwed-up slutty Slayer, what the hell did you expect? A pretty white wedding?" Faith said. "All those things I did on top of you, all those times I made you gasp and moan and scream, how do you think I did all that? Natural ability? Slayer skills? Please. I learned all that a long time ago." She grabbed her bag and walked to the door. "It ain't you. It ain't Xander. It's just me."

Faith opened the door, and the words slipped out before Robin could stop them, even though he knew they would hurt both of them.

"I loved you, Faith."

She hesitated for a moment, then walked out and shut the door.

-:-

Faith stopped in the hallway, just outside the door to her -- no, not her bedroom. Not any more.

She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair. She hated hurting Robin, he had been good to her, but it was true. That was her, and nothing would change that.

Still, she never knew if it was Robin's voice or her ears that, when she heard his last words, put the emphasis on the past tense.

-:-

Kennedy, Kim, and Janet went to bed after everyone else left, but Willow stayed up to wait for Xander to get back. She could picture him in his dead Slayer's car, brooding and guilty, blaming himself for Katharine's death as he drove back from Giles' house.

He came back much later than the short drive to and from Giles' house required. She got the feeling he drove around both to stew in his thoughts and in hopes that, when he finally returned, everyone else would already be asleep. He came in silently, and it took him a few moments to notice her sitting in a chair.

He looked at her, and his face had the blank, overwhelmed look on it that Willow had seen before: after Joyce died, after Buffy died, in the nights after his failed wedding, and after Sunnydale collapsed. She knew he felt lost, and helpless, and a loss and grief beyond anything his mind could actually wrap itself around.

And, because he was Xander, he would feel that everything was all his fault, that somehow he should have prevented Katharine from going after Cole, or known she had a dream, or talked to her better -- or something.

"Will, you're--" Xander said. She didn't let him finish; she jumped up and grabbed him around the waist and held him tightly. She felt his arms slide tentatively around her shoulders and back as she buried her face in his chest. "I'm sorry, Willow," he whispered into her hair.

"No," she said. She shook her head against his chest, then pulled back a little bit to look up at him. She kept her arms around his waist, though, and his arms stayed around her shoulders. "No, it's not your fault, Xander."

"I--"

"I said no," Willow said firmly. "I can tell you're blaming yourself for what happened tonight, Xander, but it's not your fault."

She felt him pull back from her some, but she held on tightly. "If not mine, than whose?" he said.

"How about the vampires who killed them?" Willow said. She raised an eyebrow. "Don't forget about them, they--"

"I never forget anyone!" Xander said; it was almost a snarl. He put his hands on her shoulders and tried to push her away from him, but she held on. She wondered if this was how he felt on Kingman's Bluff; on the brink of a precipice, hanging on for the both of them while being pulled apart at the seams -- the only difference being that she had hurt him, and she knew he wouldn't hurt her. "I remember them all, everyone I was supposed to keep safe and couldn't--"

Willow remembered how, when they were in grade school, Xander always blamed himself for the arguments his parents got into, always felt that if he had just done something he could have stopped them. And he never forgot an argument, either; even years later, he could always name when his parents had fought and could list reasons it was his fault. "Xander, no," she argued, "nobody could've done anything more for--"

"I don't care!" he yelled. He slammed his hands down into the inside of her elbows, breaking her arms open from around his waist, and shoved her back away from him. "I let them--"

Her magic lashed out before she could think, reacting to the physical violence and her shock that Xander had actually pushed her, had actually hurt her. He flew back about eight feet and slammed into the couch, stunned but not really hurt.

He stared at her, his eyes wide and hard, and filled with an emotion she never thought she would see directed at her from him.

"Oh, Goddess," Willow whispered. Her hand came up to cover her mouth, and she took a tentative step forward. She heard steps on the stairs as the Slayers ran down. "Xander, I'm sorry, you just surprised me!"

Xander stood up slowly. He stared at Willow for a moment, then looked up at the three Slayers at the bottom of the stairs. "Just-- fuck all you guys," he snarled, and left the house.

-:-

Giles picked up Andrew from the airport the next morning.

Andrew came off the plane chattering to a man about the difference between the X-Men films and the true development of the characters over the forty-plus years the comic has run. Giles felt sorry for the poor man.

Andrew noticed Giles as he passed through the security checkpoint. He cut off his monologue without any explanation -- the man with him looked relieved -- and walked over to Giles.

"You look like you haven't slept since I left," Andrew said.

"It's been a rough past few nights," Giles said. He was beginning to adjust to Andrew's lack of tact, but British sensibility still made him squirm sometimes. "I'll tell you about it in the car."

"Oh, yay," Andrew muttered to himself. "That's a good sign."

-:-

Once in the car, Giles related the events of the past few days to Andrew.

"That fits a bit with what I found," Andrew said when the story was done.

He continued with his report in a manner much more serious and reserved than anything the Scoobies or other Slayers would think him capable of. "I met with the power-fluctuation mage you contacted about a week ago," he said. "It took some convincing, but eventually he agreed to do a reading for me if I translated some demon texts that he had there. Not interesting stuff -- nothing that could do any real damage, but we should probably try to keep an eye out that way anyway."

Giles nodded. "We'll do that, then. What did the mage find?"

"Things are changing in demon circles, big-time," Andrew said. "Especially in regards to demon-human hybrids. Dates back to last May."

"You think that the magic we worked has something to do with it?"

Andrew shrugged. "If Slayers harness demonic power like you say, I don't see any way it wasn't us. Mage said that the hybrids are more powerful now, especially vampires."

Giles nodded. "That would fit with what Faith said about the vampire she fought with the Scythe last night."

Andrew shrugged. "I guess. That's your area of expertise, not mine."

Giles thought for a few moments as he drove, then asked, "What did you learn in Los Angeles?"

"Place is basically anarchy," Andrew reported. "With the Circle gone, there's no true top power, but no one seems to be too keen on the idea of taking over. Some people seem to think Angel and company are still around, and it's all a ploy or something."

"Really? Do you think that's possible?"

Andrew scoffed. "Possible? Angel and Spike have both already come back from the dead once, and that's not counting being raised. They're like freaking Obi-Wan Vamp-obi. I'll believe anything at this point, but at the same time, I don't believe a thing."

Giles rolled his eyes. Even as a serious undercover operative, Andrew couldn't go ten minutes without some reference to popular culture. Giles had long since given up trying to kill the habit.

Didn't mean he wasn't right, though.

-:-

Willow sat in her office with the Scythe, ostensibly working on the problem of finding the new Slayers. She couldn't concentrate, though. When Faith approached and knocked on her door, it was actually a relief.

Until she found out what Faith wanted, at least.

"Find him," Faith said. Janet and Rona stood behind her -- Rona looked worried and anxious, but Janet looked incredibly pissed off. "I know you're pissed off, and that's cool, but... Do your magic thing and find him."

Willow sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. "Okay," she said, and opened her eyes again. "I need something that belongs to him."

Rona held out a Nightwing action figure, still in the original packaging.

"You sure that isn't Andrew's?" Willow asked.

"Yeah," Faith said softly. "Gave it to him for his birthday last year. He's always liked Nightwing."

Willow nodded. "Yeah. He has."

She took the action figure from Rona and gathered her spell components. She had no real desire to cast the spell, not yet; the harsh words from the previous night still hurt. She pushed her feelings aside -- who knew how they could mess up even a simple locator spell? Something she'd rather not find out, thank you very much. So Willow blanked her mind of everything but the spell at hand and cast it.

The result was exactly what she feared. Something she'd only seen mentioned in theory, practically the witchcraft equivalent of an urban legend, but still -- with all that had happened to Xander over the years, all the things and feelings he repressed -- not surprising.

Softly, under her breath, she swore.

"What is it?" Faith asked, an edge to her voice Willow didn't recognize.

"He's... gone," Willow said.

"Yeah, we know," Janet said. "That's why we're lookin' for him."

"No." Willow shook her head. "Everything in the world is connected, see--"

"Christ, Willow!" Janet interrupted, her anger evident from her tone and stance. "We don't care! Just tell us where the--" Willow glared at her, and Janet cut off. Her voice softened. "I heard what he said to you last night, Willow. Just tell us where he is."

"I can't." Willow spoke the words clipped, hard.

Faith stepped into the room; Willow could see the concern on her face. "You sayin' he's dead?"

"No, he's not dead." Willow paused. "At least, I don't think so. I can't be sure."

"So what the hell is going on?" Janet asked.

"I was trying to explain, but it's not easily summed up. You have to be patient." Janet held her hands up, palms open and forward, and Willow continued. "Like I said, everything in the world is connected. That's one of the basic principles of witchcraft, more than half my magic is based on that theory alone.

"A locator spell works off that concept. The things we own, we leave a trace of ourselves on them. The spell goes to find the person who put that trace on whatever object you use, but it has parameters -- that's how I can tell where the person is and if the person is dead, or in another dimension or something. With me so far?"

The Slayers nodded.

Willow continued, "But people change. Obviously. Usually it's gradual, so as long as you have something decently recent, it's fine, the spell works. Like, your second-grade book bag isn't going to work, because you're not really the same person now as you were back then."

"We didn't bring you Xander's second-grade book bag," Janet growled.

Willow ignored her. "But sometimes that can happen in a short period of time -- a few days whose events change the person a lot, or maybe something traumatic that culminates a long series of tragic events."

"You can't find him," Rona said softly. "He's changed."

Willow nodded. She wasn't going to cry in front of them -- she'd cried plenty the night before.

The three Slayers stood in the doorway for a moment. Janet was the first to move; she punched the door frame, hard, and stalked off. Rona watched her go, then turned to Willow and opened her mouth; whatever she was about to say, she thought better of it, and walked away silently. Which left Faith alone in the doorway.

"Is he alive?" Faith whispered after a few moments of silence.

"I don't know," Willow said. "I think so."

Faith stood there for a few more moments, and the look on her face changed to resolve. "Okay," she said, and walked off.

Willow wondered what she had planned.

-:-

Kim came into her room after a post-workout shower. Janet was on her bed, her hands behind her head and looking up at the ceiling.

"Hey," Kim said cautiously. She had no idea what type of mood her roommate would be in.

Janet didn't look over at her at all. "Hello," she said, her voice flat.

Kim grabbed some sweats and a t-shirt to lounge around in on her night off patrol. Janet never looked over while she changed -- not that she usually checked her out when she was naked or anything, but she usually at least seemed aware of her.

"You okay?" Kim asked. She was fully dressed before she spoke, which was not an accident; if Janet was pissy, she wanted to be ready to bolt. She was not in the mood to get chewed out for expressing sympathy, or being part of the only Slayer group yet to lose a Slayer.

"No," Janet said.

Kim waited, but that was it. Nothing more. "Listen, I'm-- I'm really sorry about Katharine," Kim said. It sounded insincere to her, even though she really meant it. "I wish there was something I could've done."

"Thank you," Janet said.

Kim nodded. Awkward. Definitely awkward.

She got to the door before Janet stopped her.

"Wait," Janet said. She sat up and looked at Kim for the first time. "You still thinking about that Slayers' Council stuff?"

"Yeah," Kim said. "I am."

Janet nodded. Slowly, she said, "So... what would we need to do?"

-:-

Willow sat outside Buffy's house, in the dark, and watched Faith slip out the window of Dawn's room. Faith slipped through the bushes on the side yard, a backpack slung over one shoulder, and Willow stepped out of the shadows while the Slayer was still several feet away.

"I had a feeling you'd be leaving," Willow said in response to the shocked look on Faith's face. "Saw it in you when you found out about Xander."

Faith's carefree mask came back up in a flash. "Uh-huh. Whatever."

"So you're leaving just because?" Willow said.

Faith shrugged. "No Watcher, don't got a boyfriend no more -- no reason to stay, Red."

"I can think of several -- including the ones you just named." Willow looked at Faith as the Slayer shifted back and forth on her feet. "You're going after Xander, aren't you?"

Faith looked up at Willow, swore under her breath, and nodded. She looked away as she spoke. "He believed in me, you know? Even when he had no reason to, maybe more than even Buffy did. I ain't gonna do any less for him."

"I get it," Willow said gently. "He did the same thing for me, after Tara died."

Faith looked at the ground and kicked something with the toe of her boot. "Don't tell no one, okay? I don't want no tearful goodbye or nothing, just... gone."

"Call me once a month, let me know what's up, and it's a deal," Willow said.

Faith nodded and walked past Willow. She got to the edge of the side yard and paused. "Hey, Willow -- you think, if I stayed, you and me'd ever be friends?" she asked softly.

"I think all the unresolved sexual tension would've prevented a lasting platonic bond," Willow joked. Faith laughed and wiggled her rear at Willow. Willow smiled, but quickly turned serious. "Find him, Faith."

Faith nodded. "Take care of my girls for me, Red," she said, and left.

-:-

Willow sat in her office the next afternoon and worked on the locator spell to find the new Slayers, although she had a very hard time concentrating. The events of the past few days had finally caught up to all of them, and everyone seemed to be in a state of shock.

At least, that's how Willow felt. It was just overwhelming, from the attack on Buffy's house to Helen's death and Audrey's abduction to Katharine's prophecy dream that lead her to her sister--

Willow jerked up straight in her seat as an idea struck her.

-:-

Giles sat in his office, behind the desk, and stared at the three Slayers in front of him in a shock so great he even forgot about polishing his glasses.

Janet -- apparently the spokeswoman for the three, as Kim and Vi stayed silent during almost the entire conversation -- just stared at him coldly. He could barely believe the level of hostility which radiated from her. Before, she had always been friendly and outgoing; now, today, she glared at him like he stole something from her.

"I-- I don't know how wise this is," Giles said. "It seems a bit rash--"

"Of course it does," Janet snapped. "To you. Because you're a Watcher."

Giles took a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. He hadn't slept much the last few nights, and he was having a hard time keeping his temper in check. He understood where the girls were coming from, and he could see the benefits in such an organization -- one to run parallel to the Watchers' Council and watch out expressly for the Slayers' interests. The two organizations could work together and keep each other honest.

However, this early in the structuring and reformation of the Watchers' Council, he feared that the presence of a counter-organization -- however benevolent in intention -- would push the new Council to be far too much like the old Council. He wanted to finish the work of creating the new Watchers' Council before the Slayers organized. He wanted to find the other Slayers first. With the mood Janet was in, though, he couldn't think of a way to tell her that without her perceiving that he was against the idea.

The door to his office burst open before he could frame a reply.

Willow rushed in, her face flushed. "Giles! Giles, I--"

"Willow, we are in the middle of a meeting here," Giles admonished.

"But Giles--"

"Willow--"

"I figured it out, Giles," Willow said quickly.

Giles took a deep breath. Obviously, Willow wouldn't leave. "You figured what out?"

A confident, almost cocky grin spread across Willow's face. "How to find the Slayers," she said.

Janet, Kim, and Vi all stood up, shocked.

"Ohmygod-- are you serious?"

Willow nodded, her eyes still on Giles. "Yeah. Except, we won't really find them -- they'll find us."

"How do you mean?" Giles asked.

"I was thinking about--" Willow paused, and the excitement seemed to drain out of her for a moment. "I was thinking about the past few days, and specifically about the prophecy dream Katharine had that told her where to find Audrey." She took a deep breath, then shrugged. "And I realized that, while I can't find the new Slayers, I _can_ get to the power source. Which is where the dreams come from."

"And send the unfound Slayers dreams to guide them to us," Giles said.

Willow nodded. "Exactly."

-:-

_The end; to be continued in_ Of Those Chosen: The Dreamless


End file.
